Movielink Snubs DRM-less Macs

mcwetboy writes "CNET reports that the Macintosh is being shut out of online movie services like Movielink, and connects it to the Mac's lack of digital-rights management. From the article: '[Apple VP] Schiller says Apple has not released much in the way of protective technology ... because effective techniques for securing content without interfering with the experience of consumers have not yet been invented.' A consumer-friendly attitude towards DRM may be a double-edged sword (content may not be made available for that platform), but if the content is locked out of the Mac for that reason, do I really want it anyway?" In other news, the USSR provided free bread only to the poor people.

Comments

Get ready.

[Anonymous Coward]

There's going to be a lot more of this type of thing.

Paladium, here we come.

Re:Get ready.

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen. And there would be less of it if "consumers" would quit downloading all the pirated software, music, DVDs et al which I *don't* download but for which I have to pay the piper in terms of such problems.

I pay for the software others steal. I pay for the music others steal. And I am likely to start paying more for DVDs in the future as the popularity of stealing movies grows.

I applaud Apple for their efforts to resist support for ANYKIND of protect that prevents my "fair use" of that material, but I do not applaud those who play their little games with limewire or gnuella or whatever and steal content. "It's too expensive" or whatever the excuse is means nothing to me. If you can't afford it don't buy it. That's why I don't drive a fancy car. I can't afford one. But I'd like to have one so this afternoon I think I'll go steal a Mercedes because they cost too much money (or whatever other lame reason I happen to dream up).

Re:Get ready.

[CashCarSTAR]

"I pay for the software others steal. I pay for the music others steal."

Actually you don't. Software, music and movies are sold at industry standard prices for the most part that stand completely aside from how many copies they actually sell. They are priced depending on what they think what people are willing to pay, not based on a forumla like a majority of consumer goods. (Production+Marketing+Shipping+Profit).

The public at large doesn't get much guilt from copying material. This may be for a reason.

Re:Get ready.

[0x0d0a]

Yup.

The difference is that countries get pissed off (*cough* Australia legalizing bypassing region code restrictions, *cough* Canada and satellite TV) about this sort of stuff and turn a blind eye to bypassing.

You then have a bunch of types that would never blow time trying to bypass copy protection running out and working on doing so. Before it was just the Linux folks. Now it's the Mac folks. :-)

I hope those DRM coders aren't making any mistakes in any of their code or design, or it's gonna get exploited to hell.

Re:Get ready.

[Frymaster]

let me get this straight. your argument is: because some 15 year old copied this game, the price of the game goes up by a certain amount to compensate for that loss of revenue by the manufacturer. is that right?

a nice little piece of sophistry. sadly it relies on the *assumption* that those who copy software (or music or movies) would pay for them if they if the option to copy were not available. by and large i submit that premise is false.

while make an empirical judgement one way or the other is all but impossible, anecdotal evidence and common sense indicate that much of the high calibre software that is stolen is done by people who would not pay for it under any circumstances. would that college student shell out $700 for photoshop or just do without if all p2p networks were shutdown. i submit the latter.

in point of fact, software theft has proven to be beneficial to many software companies. photoshop which (under the mac at least) was embarassingly easy to copy in the early days resulted in every starving student having a copy. when these starving students entered the workforce they brought their skills and preferences with them resulting in photoshop becoming the industry standard raster graphics app.

this has happened time and time again. remember "ready set go"? of course not: they went out of business in the early nineties. why? too hard to copy. design students developed a preference for a more easily ripped-off layout app: quarkXpress.

the comparison to cars is even worse sophistry. the cost of any product can be broken down into its three main components: labour, materials and cost-of-capital (don't take my word for it, ask adam smith or karl marx). the mercedes has a set cost per unit for labour and material. software, on the other hand, has zero costs for labour, material and capital above what is required to create the original. programmers, designers, beurocrats, bankers &c. cost the same whether you make one copy of photoshop or a billion. the only variable cost is the cost of media (the cds) but since p2p copying doesn't necessitate a media, it's free too.

if you're going to argue against piracy that's fine. i may even be inclined to side with you (i am both a programmer and a musician) but please try to develop a real argument first.

And I'm going to miss this how?

[lennywood1]

I dont watch movies on my G4 anyway. If I want to watch a movie, I watch it on my TV where I can be comfortable. But I do enjoy the lack of DRM on my mac.

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[otis wildflower]

Wow, you can lug your whole computer rig on an airplane? Where do you find the AC plugs? ;)

OTOH, with my TiG4 + extra batteries, I can fly coast to coast without having to watch "You've got mail" or whatever drek is being shoveled out over the airline miniscreens...

Last trip was given to the Mr. Show and Criterion Beastie Boys DVD sets.. (and widescreen discs are even nicer on the wide Ti..)

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[scotch]

I read books and listen to CDs. Total cost is less than $100. Nothing puts you to sleep better than the combination of the two, and we all know the best way to enjoy air travel is by being unconcious.

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[crazyphilman]

Not that I ever step on an airplane anymore (I tell people, "if it's too far to drive it's TOO DAMN FAR") but back when I used to fly, I always kept my laptop safely hidden in my carry-on. I always figured that if I took it out, Murphy's law would get me -- some jackass would accidentally spill his/her coke and complimentary roasted nuts all over my system.

MY solution was to bring a good science fiction novel with me. It doesn't require electricity, it's much more interesting than anything you'll see on DVD, and you don't have to worry about it getting damaged (books are pretty tough).

A side benefit is, that dufus they crammed next to you in the seat is a lot less likely to annoy you by craning his neck over if you're not running a midget movie theater. About the most you'll get is "whatcha readin'?" which you can deal with by supplying an unsettling stare and the reply, "A book about an airline passenger who poisons one of his fellow passengers -- Oh, LOOK! Your soda and nuts are here!" (this last said with an inexplicable brightening of your expression and a big smile. Make sure you stare at the person while he/she eats).

Um... Never mind. ;)

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[rainwalker]

Wow, you can afford to stream movies during a plane flight? I assume that you are flying in your own private jet, not in a commerical airliner, where, even if you could get good data rates over the AirPhone-type service, you'd be paying a dollar a minute or more for airtime. Is "Mr. Show" really worth $120 for a single viewing? [/sarcasm]

Movielink is all about ONLINE distribution of movies. Noone is preventing Macs from playing DVD's. You, as a Mac owner, should be aware of this.

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[nigelc]

[offtopic]
I always read books about air disasters when riding on aircraft.

it's interesting

it keeps the people in the adjacent seats quiet

the plane is less likely to crash, because the gods of flying have a sense of humor

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[daddymac]

Total cost is less than $100. Nothing puts you to sleep better than. . .

I beg to differ. I bring a 6 pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon. Total cost, 6 dollars. And nothing puts me to sleep faster.

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[Robspiere]

"Wow, you can afford to stream movies during a plane flight?" ... "Movielink is all about ONLINE distribution of movies"

Movielink is not all about streaming. In fact, from what I can tell there is no provision for streaming. You pick the movie, cough up the $5, and an hour later (with broadband) it's on your computer. You have a month to start watching it, and after you press play you have up to 24 hours to finish watching it. This is a fine way to take movies on the plane.

No, the quality isn't great and the selection is limited, but you can't beat the convenience and we all know that the next version will look better and the library of titles will grow.

As to the implementation of DRM, of course they're going to give it a shot. To allow downloads (for a fee) of the full unencrypted movie ensures that they will cripple the revenue stream. The kind of people who will be early adopters of Movielink are the same kind of people who use KaZaA(lite). Let the studios find a happy medium between functionality and security.

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?

[MoneyT]

My computer screen is bigger than my TV screen

Dude, it's too bad that your TV is that bad. I think I can acurately say that there is very little that comes close in terms of home entertainment (that's also affordable) than a 42" Sony Vega TV, a high quality Sony DVD player with an Aiwa reciever, built in THX decoder and a 5.1 surround system. I have never come across a set of computer speakers that give the sound that this system gives, nor a computer monitor that has the sort of visual clarity that this setup does (at least from the couch).

DRM's dirty little secret

[tucay]

As Steve Jobs has pointed out is that DRM's dirty little secret is that it does not work and will always be hackable.

The answer is to make reliable, quality, fairly price downloads available. Don't assume your customers want to be criminals.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[BigBir3d]

The answer is to make reliable, quality, fairly price downloads available. Don't assume your customers want to be criminals.

That statement does not follow the mantra of Microsoft, hence it is wrong.

Don't you guys pay attention ;-)

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[runenfool]

The problem is that Microsoft is telling execs that it CAN be protected. Thus they believe it and lock out other platforms.

It doesn't matter if its true or not, Gates/Ballmer are telling them what they want to hear.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[JWW]

Yes, but only on their operating systems ;-)

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[BrookHarty]

I use http://sourceforge.net/projects/asfrecorder/ to download those nice protected microsoft media files.

OF course for how long it will still work, I have no idea.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[LostCluster]

Microsoft can make their DRM technology work, by using Security-by-Lawyer...

If you crack even the stupidest DRM technology, you have violated the DMCA. Therefore, there's no need to make a bulletproof DRM technology, just a stupid one with lawyers to back it up. That seems to be good enough for Hollywood.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Shamashmuddamiq]

Exactly. Of all the reasons why I don't buy Microsoft (and there are a lot of them), this is what tops the list. Microsoft assumes that their customers are not only stupid and too incompetent to make their own decisions, but also that they are criminals.

If I switch out my hard drive and motherboard, I'm not going to want my operating system accusing me of being a criminal. That's just a bad idea. Obviously, the intelligent people at Microsoft (if there are any) aren't the ones that make the decisions.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Bonker]

This is a software developer's greatest weakness.

If your customer tells you he wants his product to do x, then you give him a piece of software that will do x, even if you know he really wants y and z.

Case in point... DeCSS. The entire CSS scheme, which is fairly robust on its surface, revolved around having a secret key... a secret key that was going to be included in millions of decoder chips and in hundreds of software releases available to millions of people.

All the technical genius in the world can see that the second the key was in the hands of the public in one way or the other, it would be copied and it would be redistributed. The only reason that Jon Johansen got in trouble was because he was a kid and really didn't understand how many powerful entities he was upsetting when he released DeCSS. A person who had to copy the key off of a eprom or decrypt it out of DVD player firmware would probably understand a little better than someone who took a debugger to RealPlayer and found the key there, unencrypted.

The developers of the DeCSS scheme *knew* this would happen, as did the technical minds that came up with the CD watermarking protection scheme. Their bosses, the ones directing the development pretended like they didn't know, but you know they did.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[neuroticia]

*Microsoft*?! Hah. It doesn't follow the Mantra of the RIAA and MPA. Their mantra is "In every customer is a possible criminal." and "If they can use it, they can steal it, therefore they should pay without having the privilidge of using it, so that we can continue to create more stuff along the lines of Brittney Spears"

Microsoft might *encourage* the mentality, but Microsoft encourages a lot of stupid mentalities. The MPA/RIAA are the problem, not Microsoft. It's the MPA/RIAA that are pushing for insane copyright measures. I know it's fun to hate Microsoft, but let's not let it detract from the people we should *REALLY* be hating.

-Sara

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you equally offended when asked for your ID to purchase alcohol?

All Microsoft does through WPA is ask you to verify that which you say you are (i.e., a legal licensee). All a liquor store clerk does is ask you to verify that which you say you are (i.e., over 21 years of age).

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Clockwurk]

If you crack even the stupidest DRM technology, you have violated the DMCA. Therefore, there's no need to make a bulletproof DRM technology, just a stupid one with lawyers to back it up.

This is actually a good thing. Let's say you are trying to protect your house. Do you want the law to state that you must have an impenetrable fortress and if someone breaks in, tough luck?? Not having the strongest protection scheme should make a break-in (or cracking) any less illegal or wrong. If you think it should, next time someone breaks in to you house you should be saying "Well, I had it coming; I should have barred my windows and doors."

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Webm0nkey]

All DRM is crackable, eventually. The intent of DRM in this case is to make it easier for people to pay for the content than to crack the DRM.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[macdaddy357]

We can punish the entertainment industry by not buying their products. We forced software manufacurers to give up copy protection in the Commodore 64 days by not buying the crap, and by cracking the copy protection with programs like renegade and maverick. We can do it again.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Oculus Habent]

Hope to be the media center of tomorrow?

Did you see Windows XP Media Center Edition?

They plan on being it.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[bsane]

Nobody asks for my ID when I get a beer out of my fridge.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[fletchnj]

Yes, but the interesting part is not that the public could get the "secret" key. The interesting part was that once a few people actually started looking at CSS it was so weak that you don't even need the secret key to break it.

The problem with "industry" (i.e. Microsoft, Sony, DVD consortium, etc) solutions is that they will put forward some lame, weak, proprietary solution that does little more than lock out their competitors from the market. For example Linux and DVDs.

The problem Apple will have is that no one will believe them when they say that the existing DRM solutions are crap.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Oculus Habent]

Not quite.

The initial askind for ID is more like the Product Key - making sure you have the right to use the product.

The Activation is like being asked for your ID every time you open the bottle of liquor in your house.

I understand their motivation. Most people don't frig around with their computers enough to be bothered by this, and it helps them prevent some level of misuse.

(I know I'll get responses to this one...)
I dare say that more people were angered because they couldn't steal the software as easily than because they were serious upgrade fiends.

It does negatively affect people who have legal copies of the software and like to upgrade their computers. I would be in that group if I didn't still use Windows 98 for my PC.

Are we at a point where companies are expected not to do things in their best interests? DRM, if implemented well, could be a painless thing. Now I agree it's not implemented well, and shouldn't been pushed on people until such time. But then, if we held to that theory, no one would be using half the stuff out there. WPA, it's not too painful - (among other things the telephone part could be better - transition the alpha-numeric code into simple sentances or something easier to deal with...) and yet we still scream about Microsoft being manipulative bastards.

Well, yes, they are. And it's not reasonable for Microsoft to want to know what's in my computer (hardware-wise) at any given time. But there are millions of people using Windows who have never seen a Windows CD out of it's box, much less touched a Genuine Microsoft CD.

What Microsoft should really do to increase legal customer base is offer an amnesty period to people who have illegal copies of Windows. They should offer a downloadable program (something like WPA) that specs your computer and allows the purchase of one copy of Windows for $100. And that should be tracked, quite well, to catch offenders.
--
Some of the things I've said may not apply to you.
Some of the things I've said may offend you.
But no matter who you are,
You MUST REMEMBER this ONE THING:
--
My Other Shirt Is An Armani

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[giminy]

This message is protected with ROT-26. Any attempt to decrypt it or reverse-engineer the encryption algorithm is a violation of the DMCA.

I should still be allowed to make a backup copy of my CD....that's not quite breaking into someone's house.

If you reply to this message, I'll sue you.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Henry V .009]

The liquor store clerk is doing what an elected legislature requires him to do by law. Microsoft is not a body that we have elected to make our laws. And as you say, that is exactly how they are acting...

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, we can boycott. Just think of it, if every EFF member and Slashdotter boycotted the industry, they'd... well... um, barely notice.

The average consumer won't care. They may be frustrated that they can't copy some CD into their MP3 player, but they'll just assume it's a technology problem with their player or computer. They sure as hell aren't going to become activists and start lobbying their elected officials or, for that matter, participating in mass boycotts.

I'd love to be wrong about this, but my gut tells me that DRM is going to win the day at the expense of fair-use rights.

If boycotting is the best we can do, we're finished.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[sconeu]

The problem is that you can't RENT a video without a DRM format that expires after a week or so. This model will eventually replace the video store since it is much more convenient.


Nice try. One word. "DivX".

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Anonymous Coward]

This is an interesting point; the software industry, for the most part, learned long ago that copy protection is a scam, perpetrated by one part of the software industry on another. No copy protection method stays secure for very long. Build it into hardware, and you have a very EXPENSIVE copy protection system that will be cracked in a week. You have millions of units out there that will break if you try to alter the copy protection system, and you have millions of dollars hinging on the fact that you haven't fixed it yet. You can't push on, and you can't back it out. BIG MISTAKE.

The recording and motion picture industries are going to have to learn this lesson the hard way, but they're going to cause a lot of pain and suffering along the road to enlightenment.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[0x0d0a]

not quite breaking into someone's house

Because an artist, some marketing people, some truck drivers, some teen salespeople, and some people that run a CD press are the ones getting shafted instead of you?

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[0x0d0a]

Dear God, a moderate, reasonable, sensible *and* insightful comment related to DRM? And on Slashdot? What is the world coming to?

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[DunbarTheInept]

Not according to what happened in the Dimitri Skylarov case. Adobe's e-book encryption wasn't very hard to crack at all, and yet cracking it was still deemed a DMCA violation.

The flaw in the DMCA is precisely that it DOES allow terrible encryption techniques to count as a legal barrier. There is no definition of how cryptic something needs to be in order to actually be considered encryption under the law. This message itself is encoded into a stream of binary data using the code known as "ASCII". The way the DMCA is worded, even something like ASCII that everybody with a computer can read with built-in-software still could be thought of as encryption, since they give no minimum requirement for the effectiveness of the cryptographic technique.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[mkldev]

Because making a backup copy of anything you own is protected under U.S. Copyright law. Nobody is getting shafted. There's a difference between breaking a lock on somebody else's house and breaking the lock on your own. Making a backup copy is more like the latter.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[MoneyT]

The difference is, with the C64, your main consumers were people that used your product to it's fullest extent and actualy cared about the nuts and bolts. THe average CD user couldn't give a shit one way or the other

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[pauljlucas]

If you crack even the stupidest DRM technology, you have violated the DMCA.

I believe you have to crack it and distribute it and/or tell others how you cracked it in order for it to violate the DMCA. If you simply crack it for your own use, you're fine.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Ryan Amos]

Yeah right! What video store chain is gonna go for this? They make all their money off late fees. If you don't have to return the movie, there go the late fees they used to be able to charge you. Blockbuster is owned by Viacom (uber-media conglomerate) which just happens to be a company that can squash this kind of thing should they so desire.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Billly Gates]

Except today under the dmca renegade and maverick are both considered programs for terrorists and criminals and is a big federal crime. A crime that would lock you up in not state but in federal maximum security prison! After all its corporate espinoage. Even if its for fair use to do something like copy your own movies.

You get more prison time for practicing fair use if it involves a copyright circumvention device then actually robing a store and stealing the movie. Its both disgusting and horrible. And if we do not buy into this crap then the RIAA/MPAA will blame it on piracy and write even stricter laws and force the digital computer hubs of the future into a windows only world!

All your components will be hooked up to other home appliances. This is why Microsoft is pushing .NET mobile servers. If your mac can not look at tv programs then a microsoft box will be needed to interact with it. What if your refrigerator needs to go to a pallidium enabled site to order more milk when it detects you run out? Again, Windows with drm and pallidium will fill this need. We wouldn't want a hacker stealing from a dairies now would we? Only Windows can reorder products so the refrigerator manufactoring will make friges run Windows and .NET only because they support drm. This is dangerous and no one in the corporate world sees this as dangerous.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[LarsG]

Are we at a point where companies are expected not to do things in their best interests? DRM, if implemented well, could be a painless thing.

No.

It is impossible for client-side DRM and "fair use" to coexist.

Any client-side DRM that wants to control the number of copies made, must make it impossible to convert the 'content' to non-DRM-protected formats.

It is impossible to make a DRM that makes it possible for you to have free, uncontrolled, personal use (and I define personal as your private sphere. Putting something on Gnutella is _not_ personal use, but reading an eBook you have bought on the platform and with the software of your choice is.).

I certainly don't condone the copyright infringement that is happening on P2P networks today, but at the same time I think that DRM is the wrong solution.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[k98sven]

We forced software manufacurers to give up copy protection in the Commodore 64 days by not buying the crap

Oh, 'we' did, did we?
As far as I remember, copy protection on games
continued way past the C64 era.
In fact, nearly all games had some kind of protection until CD-ROMs came along, which people
couldn't copy because of the sheer size.

With todays large harddrives and CD-burners everywhere, copy protection is back in.

Consumer power never came into the equation.

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

"If they can use it, they can steal it, therefore they should pay without having the privilidge of using it, so that we can continue to create more stuff along the lines of Brittney Spears"

And what, exactly, is wrong with having more stuff along the lines of Britney? I think she's cute, and one of her isn't enough to go around... ;-)

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[SmittyTheBold]

We can punish the entertainment industry by not buying their products....We forced software manufacurers to give up copy protection in the Commodore 64 days...We can do it again.

It worked in those days because the average C64 user was well-informed. These days, your average computer user is not. Know why? Now, a computer is a mass market, while in the 80s it was much more of a niche. The only people that had a computer were people that specifically wanted one.

Anymore, a person gets a computer so they can get/send cute pictures of newborn kids and have their older children write papers. They know nothing about the market or what their computer is truly capable of doing.

If Americans don't take the time to figure out why they should or shouldn't vote for a specific Republican or Democrat, let alone VOTE every year, why do you think they would take the time to determine the exact limitations imposed on them by the content industry?

American consumers are rather like sheep in that regard, and they believe mostly what they hear. Since the marketing material is all they have to go on, they'll continue to buy "DVD-Quality Video!" "More RAM for your MegaHertz!" and "Now With SuperSpiffy Technology!"

Re:DRM's dirty little secret

[TotallyUseless]

think monthly fees, as opposed to per-rental fees. Netflix is an example of a rental company that doesn't rely on late fees. I could see this model possibly working even better for Blockbuster than Netflix, since Blockbuster could charge around the same price as Netflix, but gets to skip all the charges associated with shipping to and from the customer. It could even be better for the customer, since if you watch the 3 movies you are allowed to have out at a time in one day, you could just go back to Blockbuster and get 3 more that same day, rather than having to wait around for Netflix and the USPS to get your movies there and back. This would greatly add to the number of titles you could realistically rent in a month on an 'unlimited' plan.

Having said all that, I honestly have no clue as to whether or not Netflix is making a profit. I know they are a fairly small operation, so they may not be bleeding cash from every orifice.

Quote too long

[gorilla]

because effective techniques for securing content without interfering with the experience of consumers have not yet been invented.'

The correct quote is "Effect techniques for securing content have not yet been invented."

Re:Quote too long

[LostCluster]

No, if I unplug power from your computer (or take the battery out of your laptop) you definitely won't be making any copies of any copyrighted materials. However, that might slightly interfere with your user experience.

Re:Quote too long

[kasperd]

have not yet been invented.

I always had the impression it hasn't been invented because it is basically impossible.

eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news, the USSR provided free bread only to the poor people.

What does that mean? Are the content providers the USSR? And Windows users are poor people? No, that's not right, because you still have to pay for the content.

This is more like refusing to sell bread to brown-skinned people because "everybody knows they're all criminals".

Re:eh?

[SirSlud]

More them like refusing to sell bread to anybody thats not _already_ in jail where they cant be watched in the consumption phase.

Re:eh?

[LostCluster]

The USSR only gave away bread to the people who needed it. There was no government handout waiting for those who could afford to buy their own.

Yet here, MovieLink (which is another word for "a group the major content owners") is bypassing Macintosh users because Apple refuses to develop a DRM technology because all DRM would do is limit the functionaility of their products in ways that are unfavorable to the people who buy their products. This, instead of say, MovieLink hiring tech staff to create its own DRM solution... bearing the costs of doing so themselves instead of trying to stick Apple with the bill.

BTW... who's working on the DRM technology so MovieLink will see fit to offer their services to users of Linux. Anybody? Anybody at all?

When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Bouncings]

What is implicit in the Schiller's statement... "There are some real challenges in DRM, It's important to protect artists' rights and we want to do that...but no one has been able to make a model that works."

So Apple supports the idea of DRM, just not the implementation? That's just as bad if you ask me, and I also think this looks new. In the past, I've only seen Apple on the side of "no DRM" -- now it seems they would be willing to implement DRM if it were done in a way that doesn't interfere with the user experience?

Just an observation.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[runenfool]

They do not support DRM, they support the right of artists to get paid for their work. Judging by what we have seen so far Apple promotes fair use but expects people to not steal things.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Have Blue]

No. Apple supports the idea of not stealing or infringing copyright. However, unlike everyone else, they are not willing to pursue this goal at the expense of existing functionality and their customer's rights.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[thatguywhoiam]

So Apple supports the idea of DRM, just not the implementation?

Erm, hm. That's a strange interpretation.

I think what Schiller is saying is 'Apple supports the idea that artists should get paid for their works. Apple recognizes that no one has figured out an effective way to do this yet.'

This is basically the line in the sand where we see if Apple really has balls. If content (with demand, mind you - Movielink is a bad joke) starts to appear regularly with DRM embedded, we'll see if Apple sticks to their guns. It may save them in the end if they do.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[aftk2]

In the past, I've only seen Apple on the side of "no DRM" -- now it seems they would be willing to implement DRM if it were done in a way that doesn't interfere with the user experience?

I don't see this as too big of a deal. First off, I consider this statement some sort of damage control - "Hey, Hollywood, we're your friends, remember?"

Secondly (and much more important), the "user experience" you mention is actually synonymous with a user's fair use rights. Apple finds the idea of protecting artists' work a good one, but not at the expense of fair use rights. Apple sells the iPod. Apple sells Apple-branded Superdrives. But at the bottom of all those commercials are the words "Don't Steal Music." Apple has never taken a friendly stance toward piracy. They are friendly towards consumers, however.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[TerryAtWork]

They want us to break our computers to support their business model.

Let's not do that.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[LostCluster]

Furthermore, Apple supports artists who want to use their Macs to create content that is of a quality that competes with the major publishers. iMovie isn't the world's greatest video editing program, but it beats Nothing which is the video creation program you get free with Windows.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

They do not support DRM, they support the right of artists to get paid for their work.

Please stop mindlessly repeating the PR party line of movie studios. This isn't about artists, this is about the profits of big corporations.

Judging by what we have seen so far Apple promotes fair use but expects people to not steal things.

What about consumer rights? If I pay for a piece of copyrighted content, I have a right to fair use of that content. DRM keeps me from that.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Iguanaphobic]

It's called a book.

not tracking or tethering the user in any way

I buy. I leave the store. End of story.

allowing the user to view the content on any machine

Any old eyeballs will do

allow the user to study and learn about the encoding scheme used

Read books on language, typesetting, bookbinding etc.

allowing the user to copy the content for his own use, or to give to friends

Photocopyer, writing, speaking into a microphone as you read. And then give the output or the original to friends.

allowing the user to create new collage-type works for the purposes of satire or commentary

Scissors :-)

allow the user to re-sell the content when he's through with it

Used book stores.

yet prevent China-type mass "piracy"

Publishers are still in business, so it must be working for them.

Seriously, the ultimate digital DRM would be something with all the attributes of a book.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[kalidasa]

If I pay for a piece of copyrighted content, I have a right to fair use of that content. DRM keeps me from that.

Which is exactly what Apple is talking about with their "user experience" line. If someone can come up with a rights management system that doesn't interfere with fair use, I'm sure that Apple (and some of the folks around here) will be all for it. The question is : is this a technological problem, or a social one?

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

Now, if you buy something and agree to a supplemental limitation of rights, than you in fact have no non-explicit rights (ie, not defined in the contract). [...] You buy DRM'd content and you agree in fact to waive your fair use, first sale, and other consumer rights. Its basic contract law.

It's not supposed to work like that for copyrights, and for good reason: publishers would collude to eliminate fair use if they could. For books, we warded off that threat, but for on-line movies, it is happening.

More generally, you cannot waive arbitrary rights in contracts; many rights are guaranteed to you no matter what the contract says. Fair use has traditionally been such a right, and it should continue to be for digital media.

If DRM bugs you though, the obvious answer is not to buy into it.

That's a free market argument. The problem is that there is no free, competitive market in movies. I don't have a wide choice of sellers for equivalent products and I can't negotiate conditions with individual sellers. It's a take-it-or-leave-it proposition.

You can justify any monopoly with your kinds of libertarian platitudes. But the fact is that if we want a free market, we need to regulate things like copyright and fair use carefully.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

Roughly, that you're free to copy it for personal use: backup copies, conversions into formats that are more convenient. There are also additional rights regarding research and educational use. For example, I should be able to use short video clips from a movie to illustrate some points about graphics or image processing in a research paper.

For a more detailed explanation, take a look here:

http://www.eff.org/cafe/gross1.html

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

Which is exactly what Apple is talking about with their "user experience" line.

I'm not so sure. I suspect that if, for example, Quicktime was the standard video format on PCs and set top boxes, Apple would be happy with the user experience even in the presence of DRM--after all, almost everybody could view the stuff almost everywhere.

Fair use means that I can convert the content into formats that Microsoft, Apple, or Hollywood may not like, as long as I don't redistribute it.

If someone can come up with a rights management system that doesn't interfere with fair use, I'm sure that Apple (and some of the folks around here) will be all for it. The question is : is this a technological problem, or a social one?

There is no such system. Fair use means that I should be able to convert the video into formats of my choosing, and that includes non-DRM formats. It's logically impossible to have what one might traditionally consider "fair use" and DRM co-exist. They can only co-exist if you limit the meaning of "fair use".

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[runenfool]

Yes, DRM does keep you from that - thus Apple doesn't use it.

My original comment was that Apple just wants content creators (the artists themeselves are generally mac users after all) to get paid - they don't want users to have their fair rights use violated.

I guess I just don't see why you disagreed with my comment. I never said anything about DRM being right, or about Apple supporting DRM. In fact I said the opposite.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[shepd]

>They do not support DRM, they support the right of artists to get paid for their work.

Artists have a right to get paid for their work?

Damn, if only I had a right to get paid every time I built a computer! I want a special law for me too!

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[0x0d0a]

A good chunk of Mac users *are* artists...

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Bouncings]

When you remove all trust from the producer/consumer relationship, you lose respect. When you trust unconditionally, you get burned.

Let's compare this to traditional commerce. I'll even make the totally incorrect and legally invalid jump of calling "copyright infringement" by the title "stealing."

Let's say you go to a retailer and buy a hammer. Because the retailer does not trust you completely, he may have closed circuit cameras or electronic gateways at the exists that identify magnetic strips in items. So the store owner doesn't completely trust you, but he doesn't really interfere with what you're doing either.

But here's the difference. After I buy a hammer, there's absolutely nothing stopping me from using the hammer improperly. I own the hammer after I pay for it and leave the store.

DRM, on the other hand, extends that mistrust well past the end of the transaction. At this point, you're interfering with your users ability to use his hammer. It doesn't matter if your DRM is 100% effective and only blocks illegal activity -- law inforcement is not the job or responsibility of the vendor. A vendor of physical goods can only interfere with me when I'm in his store or fleaing with stolen goods. If I'm at home, well after the transaction, doing something illegal, he is obligated to defer the matter to the police.

With DRM, *any* DRM no matter how effective, you are defering law enforcement to a vendor. It doesn't matter if the DRM system doesn't limit any legal activities -- if it limits any activities -- at all -- it is at odds with a basic concept of democracy: that vigilantism is not acceptable. Call it what you will -- "DRM" or "Artists Rights" or whatever, but what it boils down to vigilantism. Because vigilantism and orderly society are mutually exclusive, I can only draw the conclusion that any support of DRM is also an attack on democracy.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[cybercuzco]

'not tracking or tethering the user in any way'

I buy. I leave the store. End of story.

Oops, you used a credit card. That info goes into the new nationwide database thats being established by the Homeland Security Act. Whats that you say, you purchased the "declaration of independance" That document advocates overthrow of a duly established American government. Expect a call from the FBI. And by call I mean raid.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[MoneyT]

They'll be there just as soon as they finish erasing the memories of the people that saw the UFO's last night.

Seriously, if you're that paranoid, use cash, it's not like books are all that fricken expensive.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Iguanaphobic]

Thus the analogy. (Get it: ANALOGy.)

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Have Blue]

An equally likely explanation is that the DVD playback is implemented with hardware-level color keying (which is how DVD players have worked for YEARS) and Apple has no reason to implement the nontrivial process of letting the Quartz-level screengrab tool access it.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Have Blue]

You've actually got something there... Maybe the next big thing is media that contains its own playback mechanism. Maybe your next album will be 64MB of ROM on a sealed MP3 player, like the "preview discmans" people bring up occasionally.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[Iguanaphobic]

Uhm, silver lining to this idea. Now would be a good time to buy Samsung stock.

A ROM would basically look after the "ease and expense of reproproduction", making it a very good anology of a book. Putting the encryption into hardware and requiring DRM hardware for playback, disabling ALL digital outputs in said DRM playback hardware... cooked goose. We'll end up with shitty analog reproductions floating around the P2P networks.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[autechre]

Argh!

There are plenty of third party Quicktime players, but like most people who think "sushi" means "raw fish", that's probably not what you meant. You probably meant something that plays Quicktime using the Sorenson codec. Quicktime is merely a container; you can shove all sorts of compression schemes in there, and there have been Quicktime players for Linux for years. The specification is open (yes, just like PDF).

(and now there's finally a third party player which supports the Sorenson codecs. The interface looks less like a beat up Pinto than it does, say, ychat :)

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

Contracts can waive just about any right, actually. Most any. I mean, the fundamental ones, no. But your employer can restrict your speech via contract, your employer can restrict your associations by contract, etc.

Employers can restrict some of your speech and some of your associations, and others, they can't, no matter what they write into the contract, and no matter how often you sign it.

Fair use has been routinely restricted in analog media sources by contract.

Routinely among certain players, yes. If you are a cable channel and you negotiate a written contract with a content provider, you can agree to many different things. However, contracts between companies and consumers are generally not established by negotiation and are subject to significantly different rules.

That decision is coming in the future, and I think clearly contract should and likely will trump copyright law.

There isn't just one kind of contract. Written contracts between economic equals are and should be almost unrestricted. The kinds of contracts that exist between my cable company or a publisher and myself need to be tightly regulated by the government because I'm simply not in a position to negotiate a fair contract.

Its a fair balance between individualism and socialism.

Ooooh, SOCIALISM. I see, when arguments fail you, you just bring out the bugaboo of socialism.

This has nothing to do with "individualism" or "socialism". It has to do with legal rules that allow a fair and free market to exist. Regulating contracts so that consumers retain choices and rights is of fundamental importance to capitalism and free market economies.

The bottom line is that if you are bothered by DRM, you must exercise your capitalist duty and deny profit to those who promote it.

The bottom line is thatif you don't like the fair use provisions people decide on, you can exercise your capitalist right not to produce under conditions that seem unfavorable to you. Frankly, I think we'd all be better off if many of the current content producers would exercise that right right now.

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

First off, I am not some two-bit slashdot poster who throws that word around. Communal ownership of all property is socialism.

No, it's not. Come on, that's a pretty basic. I suggest you at least help yourself to a good dictionary.

The balance between contract law and fair use exceptions is indeed the balance between individuals - ie contract law trumping all others and socialism - ie fair use removing private property for the good of the community.

And where exactly is the "individualism" when an corporation makes a contract? Corporations are about as anti-individualist as you can get. And the Constitution defines copyrights as limited rights that Congress may grant for the promotion of the arts; you don't own a copyright in the same way you own other private property.

It sounds like your political ideas come straight out of Ayn Rand alone; I suggest you broaden your reading a little...

Re:When Apples Introduces DRM...

[g4dget]

I am an individual. I do not have resources to press CDs, ship them, market them. I make a deal with someone who does. There we go.

By your reasoning, fascism and communism are all about individualism as well--after all, you interact with the state as an "individual". You always have the choice of, say, committing suicide, after all.

Individualism can only exist if individuals have realistic choices. Many forms of libertarian government are antithetical to individualism because it destroys the conditions under which individualism is possible. Individualism can only flourish in a legal system that gives the highest precedence to individuals, not governments and not corporations.

The balance of copyright is indeed the ultimate balance between the individual and society.

Maybe to you. In the Constitution, however, copyrights and patents are not individual rights, they are incentives created to encourage certain behaviors. You have no more individual, intrinsic rights to a copyright than you have to a tax break on your home. That's different from land or personal effects, to which the Constitution gives you intrinsic rights, independent of any act of Congress.

Socialism is in fact at its base the communal ownership of all property, which *isn't* very far from what definition Cambridge provides.

It is completely different. The goal of socialism is that everybody has about the same amount of personal property, not that all property is communally owned. Many European nations are socialist.

Reality Check

[RAMMS EIN]

``if the content is locked out of the Mac for that reason, do I really want it anyway?''
Maybe not if you're an idealist. The vast majority wants the content for the content, not because it does or doesn't work on Macs.

Oh Well

[Marc2k]

This whole Movielink thing suffers one point: digital video will (probably) always be either a) large, or b) low quality. Broadband has caught on to a large degree, but not as large as anyone thought it would, and certainly not enough for the huge streaming video boom that was supposed to happen. This means that while I'm not exactly sure which choice Movielink will make, either it will take 80% US users a day and a half to download a movie, or it will be so poor quality that their is no motivation not to go rent from Hollywood Video down the road. The only people who can't drive under 15 minutes to a local video rental store are almost certainly operating on 56k or less (except for those towns offering their own DSL ;-)). In either case, fine. I'll be just happy going to Mom & Pop's Video Store down the road and renting the new LOTR DVD to watch on my PowerBook.

Re:Oh Well

[thelexx]

There is no Mom & Pop's Video Store anymore, there is only Zuul...I mean Blockbuster.

Re:Oh Well

[richieb]

Broadband has caught on to a large degree, but not as large as anyone thought it would, and certainly not enough for the huge streaming video boom that was supposed to happen.

Streaming movies is just a stupid idea. It's a poor use of servers and bandwith. NetFlix, for example, makes a much better use of bandwith - they snail-mail DVDs...

Re:Oh Well

[Kintanon]

Broadband has caught on to a large degree, but not as large as anyone thought it would, and certainly not enough for the huge streaming video boom that was supposed to happen.

Uhh, if Broadband had caught on anymore it wouldn't be broadband anymore! The infrastructure as it stands can barely support the user load it has. If there were many more people on it we'd all be crawling along at a snails pace.
How much more caught on do you want it?! There are still hundreds of places where people want broadband and can't get it due to lack of infrastructure! The demand for broadband is not the problem here, the supply is.

Kintanon

Re:Oh Well

[derch]

For the Americans who live far enough away from a video store (something that is rather rare now), there's also Netflix. Since it's delivered by the USPS, every American household has access to the latest movies.

To the person replying saying there are no mom and pop vid stores, you just need to get out of the suburb where there's no mom & pop *anything*. Many cities, towns, and villages have independant video stores.

Re:Oh Well

[Marc2k]

I'll agree that VHS is poor quality, and I'll agree that 450 megs isn't that bad with a cable modem on in an uncrowded sector. My point though (it may not have been entirely lucid) was that, I *don't* have cable, and the majority of people I know in my area (a city halfway between NYC and Philadelphia, we're not talking rural Kansas) don't either, it'd be simply impossible to me to justify paying to download 450 megs over a connection that could easily be severed. Also, I'm certainly not alone in having less than cable.

Obviously you havent tried their system which blew me outta the water.

You're right. I can't. There is literally no way that you'd get me to pay to download a movie (hell, even pirate it) over dialup.

Re:Oh Well

[Brendan Byrd]

I dunno about you, but I download at 3Mbps, so I don't understand how "a broadband connection is impractical and slow".

Re:Oh Well

[derch]

That link should be http://www.netflix.com.

Re:Oh Well

[Lifewolf]

Uhh, if Broadband had caught on anymore it wouldn't be broadband anymore!

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
-Inigo

Re:Oh Well

[Kintanon]

Well, yeah, assuming I can get to a server that's not super crowded, or can even find anything worth downloading in the first place I get great speeds.
But I hardly ever get those speeds with commercial sites. I think that there is plenty of speed around, just no one wants to use it.

Kintanon

Funny Ipod Icon.

[viper21]

Funny you should choose the IPod icon for this article. That is the tool of choice for all Apple Hackers.

Visit your local Mac friendly store and get a free copies of software! All by dragging it off the disk onto your firewire enabled Ipod!

Talk about user friendly! No wonder they only worry about getting $$$'s for hardware.

-S

if u can write, u can't buy book

[u19925]

in another news, book publishers association has banned selling books to people who can write or type. "once you can type, you can copy a book and sell or share a pirated book", says one of the top publisher spokesperson on condition of anonymity. this means, many internet book publishers will not be able to sell the books to people who are not using voice interactive browsers like IE. they would only be allowed to place order via voice, including credit card information. in another news, USA has banned teaching writing in schools. "Writing will only be taught on need basis in advanced courses", says LA school board district administrator.

Re:if u can write, u can't buy book

[thelexx]

Playing devils advocate for a moment, there is a huge difference between copying a digital file and copying a physical book. Even photocopiers didn't make it truly practical to copy an entire book. Much easier to buy used or borrow.

Re:if u can write, u can't buy book

[vegetablespork]

But that calculus no longer works out when it only has to be done once. Look for this thing to happen if truly locked down "e-book" formats ever take hold. Only one person has to type the contents of the book keyboard-to-monitor-encrypted appliance's monitor into an unencumbered machine and share it.

Re:if u can write, u can't buy book

[EzInKy]

There's a difference between typing out an entire book and the few seconds/minutes it takes to copy a song/movie.

Why type a book out when you can simply scan it to disk? Copyright laws have worked well for both consumers and publishers for a very long time.

Re:if u can write, u can't buy book

[dmaxwell]

"Only one person has to type the contents of the book keyboard-to-monitor-encrypted appliance's monitor into an unencumbered machine and share it."

That's a little brutal isn't it? Take pictures of the screen with a digital camera and OCR the snaps. It's still labor intensive but far more practical.

As a mac user, who cares?

[smagoun]

As a mac user, I don't care. Movielink sounds awful, and Netflix is way cooler anyway.

I'm sure there are plenty of "big picture" reasons why this is bad - no mac support for other stuff like encrypted CDs, etc - but I'm going to ignore those for now and continue to be narrow-minded about this, since it's Monday and you can't stop me. To me, this article is like saying "Divx not supported on macs" - it will be met with a resounding chorus of "so what?"

(No, not that Divx. The original one. Who was the jackass that thought it would be a good idea to name a codec after the Circuit City fiasco, anyway?)

Re:As a mac user, who cares?

[Marc2k]

Wasn't one of them called DiVX;-) (yes, with the dumb smiley)? Which one was that, the original?

Re:As a mac user, who cares?

[smagoun]

The original Divx was a Circuit City-backed DVD rental system that relied on proprietary hardware. More info here.

These days, Divx is an MPEG-4 encoding/format thingy pushed by DivxNetworks. It has no relation to the Circuit City version.

To make matters worse, there was a cracked Microsoft MP4(?) codec floating around a few years ago that was called DivX or DivX :) or something; it's not related to either of the other Divxes AFAIK.

26 letters in the alphabet = 456,976 different 4-letter combinations, and all of those clowns had to pick the same 4 letters in the same order. grrrr

Best DRM scheme to date

[androse]

Apple invented the best DRM scheme to date. It's a transparent sticker aposed on all iPods. It's says :

Don't steal the music.

That's it.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[WankersRevenge]

Now all we need are stickers to put on guns which read, "Don't shoot people" and then we can get rid of all that pesky gun control legislation. (note: I'm in favor of all that pesky gun control legislation)

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[dfenstrate]

The stickers should read "Don't shoot Lawful People. Criminals in the process of commiting assualt, rape, or murder are OK to shoot."
Crimes fall where honest people are armed, because criminals fear for their lives. Gun control legislation only makes it safer for criminals to go about their business, as they can be confident their victims are unarmed.

If they ignore laws about rape, murder, or assualt, what makes you think they'll obey gun control laws any more than a stupid sticker?

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[Alien Being]

I'm waiting for the special edition "Abbie Hoffman" iPod.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[0x0d0a]

I think you're thinking of "theft".

AFAIK, "steal" has no legal meaning.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[marauder404]

Gun control legislation only makes it safer for criminals to go about their business, as they can be confident their victims are unarmed.

That would work if criminals were rational. Unfortunately, they're not only irrational, but also stupid. Even if they think that there's a chance that a victim might be armed and a rational (but morally flacid) person would seek an easier target, many criminals do the stupidest things. The result? They open fire and one or more people are injured or killed. The theory works, but it expects too much out of the lowest form of society.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[error0x100]

Gun control legislation only makes it safer for criminals to go about their business, as they can be confident their victims are unarmed.

True, but then your gun control system has to work properly, i.e. to ensure that criminals do not get hold of guns. In the US it is way too easy to get illegal guns. The result of this is criminals also walking around, better armed than the populace. This means that: (a) the criminals are equivalently armed to the people they attack, but (b) they will always have the element of surprise, and (c) since they are scummier, they are less likely to hesitate to kill someone, especially if they don't want to be killed or go to jail, and thus (d) are more likely to just SHOOT FIRST in any potential conflict situation.

Yes, an armed populace is very likely a deterrent to MANY would-be criminals. But on the other hand, you also have to look at the effect it has on the remaining, scummier criminals.

Pretend you are a criminal with a gun, which you probably obtained illegally. Now pretend you want to mug someone. You only really want their money, you don't want to kill them, but you will if you feel you are in danger. Now, as you approach your victim, you realise that that person may be carrying a gun. This mere awareness HEIGHTENS the conflict that is about to occur. You become edgy, nervous - you don't know what to expect. As you are about to attack, you realise just how high the risk really is - you may even get shot in the back while running away! There is only one sure-fire way to minimize the risk to essentially zero: shoot first! You didn't want to kill the person, but you got frightened by the intensity of this conflict situation, the risk just seemed too large.

Now pretend you are the same criminal, who also has a gun illegally, but you know you can pretty much safely assume that your victim is unarmed. As you approach your victim, you realise that they are pretty much powerless against you, you don't have to worry. You are more at ease. You just bop them over the head with the gun, grab their money, and run away, knowing that they cannot do a thing as they lie there, stunned.

I've thought about this issue a lot now, living in South Africa, where the crime rate is very high at the moment. There was a recent incident where four *armed* robbers attacked a man in his driveway, the mans two daughters were with him. He pulled out his gun and shot two of the robbers dead, on his lawn, in front of his daughters. The other two ran away. In your view, a perfect example of why an armed populace works.

But thinking it through a little more, is that really the case? For various reasons, the two robbers (who have guns) who ran away after seeing their friends shot dead, are unlikely to stop being robbers. Chances are they are living in poverty, can't get jobs, and probably have a drug habit to support. They are LIKELY to try again on someone else. But the next time round, they will have learnt their lesson: don't hesitate, shoot first. They know their lives are more important (to them) than their victims' lives. And chances are, they also feel a little bloodlust from wanting revenge for the death of their friends.

As for our "hero" who shot the two robbers dead, who we instinctively want to cheer, I doubt he even feels like a hero. Not only has he just killed two people on his own garden lawn (something very few people can claim they would not feel terrible about, regardless of the circumstances), but his two teenage daughters watched the whole thing. They watched their father blow a hole in a mans face, and a hole in the chest of another, watched the two men drop dead on the grass. This must have been highly traumatising for all of them.

And the incident heightens the fear of everyone in the country. Everyone becomes more afraid of becoming a victim, so people buy more guns. The criminals become more afraid, because they realise the risks of their enterprise are much higher. So they learn to shoot first. So the people become even more afraid, and also start learning, if in doubt, shoot first. They barracade themselves indoors. They enclose off *entire neighbourhoods*. Everyone is suspicuous of everyone. With each cycle, the conflict is heightened and intensified.

This is just how human conflict works, and in fact, primate conflict in general. Each side raises the bar, thinking they will have the upper hand. But the other side always raises the bar also, in response, so as not to be the underdog. You see this primate conflict dynamic play out in situations from ordinary road rage incidents, to bar fights, to Middle East politics, to Bush/N. Korea tension etc etc. Bush senses a threat from (N) Korea, calls them an "axis of evil". Kim (power-wise, the underdog) hears this, and (rightly, i.e. rationally) perceives it as potential aggression, so he publically announces he has a nuke - similar, if you will, to the innocent civilian arming himself, and sending a message to those around him "I am armed, don't attack me". Bush, who is now deeply uncertain of whether Korea's motives are aggressive or just defensive, will no doubt predictably respond with something along the lines of issuing an ultimatum to Korea that if they don't destroy their nuke program, the US will attack them. Kim, who has been suspecting that Bush WANTS to attack ever since they were called an "axis of evil", will inevitably just see this as proof that his suspicions were correct, and that this whole thing was designed by Bush to create the excuse to attack. Kim now 'knows' a (perceived) "imperialist" superpower wants to attack his country. Each cycle, the conflict has just been heightened. Tensions are high. He has a nuke. Decisions, decisions ..

You'd think our leaders would be intelligent enough to realise what they're doing, but they're just essentially uncontrollably responding to their gut primate instincts, no better than animals.

Oops, went a little bit on a tangent there.

I used to avidly share your opinions, but now I'm not so sure. I do still believe in my own right to be armed. Instinctively, I feel as though I should have that right to defend myself in a situation. But slowly I'm starting to have second thoughts about whether this really is better for society at large. Once the cliched old "cycle of conflict" begins, it just seems to inevitably spiral quickly upward. You just need to get into a "road rage incident" to have seen this. People get shot and killed in petty road rage incidents over nothing, which itself is proof of just how powerful this upward spiral is, and how little we really seem to do to stop it when in the situation.

Better to just avoid the situation completely. Don't let the cycle even begin. And that means unarming society - especially the criminals, but also the populace.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[gmhowell]

This would cut down on lawsuits. Go to your local motorcycle/atv/pwc dealer. Look at the number of "Don't do something really fucking stupid" stickers plastered all over them. It wouldn't say 'don't stick sensitive body parts in hot exhaust' if someone hadn't tried to fuck a muffler.

Witness also: 'Coffee may be hot'.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[Flamerule]

That would work if criminals were rational. Unfortunately, they're not only irrational, but also stupid.

No. It works irrespective of the rationality of the criminal.

If law-abiding citizens are armed, then dumb criminals attack them, and the criminals are shot and (hopefully) killed. If law-abiding citizens are not armed, then dumb criminals attack them, and the criminals succeed.

The theory works, but it expects too much out of the lowest form of society.

No. It expects nothing from the scum of society.

If criminals don't wise up, they'll get forcibly educated by one of their intended victims.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[Flamerule]

Pretend you are a criminal with a gun, which you probably obtained illegally. Now pretend you want to mug someone. ... There is only one sure-fire way to minimize the risk to essentially zero: shoot first! You didn't want to kill the person, but you got frightened by the intensity of this conflict situation, the risk just seemed too large.

This assumes that criminals are rational people. They aren't; most of them are irrational and stupid. You're saying "Trust in the criminal! If you don't carry a gun, he won't hurt you -- he'll just politely take your money and be on his way!"

As for our "hero" who shot the two robbers dead, who we instinctively want to cheer, I doubt he even feels like a hero ... This must have been highly traumatising for all of them.

Ah, yes. Better the defenseless family was robbed and possibly murdered by the criminals, eh? Then they can be content in their moral superiority, as their coffins are lowered in the ground.

Everyone becomes more afraid of becoming a victim, so people buy more guns. The criminals become more afraid, because they realise the risks of their enterprise are much higher. So they learn to shoot first.

Once again, you're assuming that criminals are rational. They're not. Look: the criminals already have guns. So if citizens suddenly have guns too... the dumbass criminals who don't wise up to the situation will start getting killed. The streets aren't a place where criminals "learn to shoot first" -- they'll get iced before they can learn.

Better to just avoid the situation completely. Don't let the cycle even begin. And that means unarming society - especially the criminals, but also the populace.

Unarming society is impossible. Look to Great Britain's example if you need to: right now, people aren't allowed to defend themselves, and criminals are the only ones with guns. Does heavily-armed Switzerland have a problem? (Alright, I know this argument is well-worn, but hey...)

Ack. Some problems with my post, but it's only /., after all. I'm sorry this isn't Usenet, so we can't have a real discussion on this, but I hope I made my position clear.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[error0x100]

his assumes that criminals are rational people. They aren't; most of them are irrational and stupid. You're saying "Trust in the criminal! If you don't carry a gun, he won't hurt you -- he'll just politely take your money and be on his way!"

Criminals are just people. Some of them will. Some of them won't. Some of them will kill you anyway. Some of them would avoid it if they can.

Ah, yes. Better the defenseless family was robbed and possibly murdered by the criminals, eh? Then they can be content in their moral superiority, as their coffins are lowered in the ground.

Obviously not, and you're twisting my views: I very specifically stated that I believe in people having a right to defend themselves, including the right to kill their attackers.

It happens a lot here that the criminals DO shoot first, its not even strange.

Yes these are difficult problems. All I'm saying is that "arming the populace" is NOT the solution that so many people make it out to be, it generates many additional problems itself, and that we should give consideration to such problems, not pretend they don't exist.

One of the problems is that this wonderfully "armed populace" is actually extremely ineffective. When the system "works" as it is "supposed to" (i.e. in the example I gave of the man who killed two armed robbers), it is the exception, not the norm. In the MAJORITY of cases, victims are either (a) murdered LONG before they've managed to get their guns out (criminals always have the element of surprise, and will shoot someone who is trying to get his gun out), and (b) in many cases, the "armed populace" is so inept that the criminal will take the persons gun and shoot them with their own gun.

You cannot just ignore these problems, no matter how badly you want the solution to be "an armed populace". The simple fact is that in reality, this "solution" only works in a small percentage of cases.

Unarming society is impossible. Look to Great Britain's example if you need to: right now, people aren't allowed to defend themselves, and criminals are the only ones with guns

Thats true, but then, look at the USA's example: its one of the countries with the highest homicide rate, much higher than most of the European countries where guns are outlawed. You have to wonder why.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[overunderunderdone]

Actually there have been a few studies that suggest that it does in fact work. I won't suggest that these studies are conslusive - in any kind of study of society there are just way to many variables. Still they are interesting and *suggest* that an armed citizenry does deter crime to some extent. It does make sense to me that with an armed citizenry there probably IS a trade off between a lower rate of premeditated crimes and an increase in the level of severity (but not necessarily occurance) of crimes of passion. For obvious reasons gun-rights advocates will focus on the one, while gun-control advocates will focus on the other. The reality is probably somewhere in between and probably influenced to a large degree by completely unrelated factors.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[marauder404]

If law-abiding citizens are armed, then dumb criminals attack them, and the criminals are shot and (hopefully) killed. If law-abiding citizens are not armed, then dumb criminals attack them, and the criminals succeed.

Well, that's just the thing, isn't it? It's that you hope it's the criminal that gets killed and not the law-abiding citizen. I think it's more likely that the attacker will get the first and fatal shot off with the element of surprise and the ability to plan. Either way, you now have one or more dead people.

I'm a moderate about the gun rights, but I don't buy this argument. Out of passion, people do dumb things and if they have a tool like this available for use, they'll use it. It's like giving every country in the world a nuke. It's an effective deterrent against other stable countries, but it all goes to shit if you have a madman willing to use a nuke and take everyone he can with him. Sorry, but I'll take the argument that guns are cool and fun to have before I take this argument.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[overunderunderdone]

True, but then your gun control system has to work properly, i.e. to ensure that criminals do not get hold of guns. In the US it is way too easy to get illegal guns.

As a purely practical matter a lot of guns already exist in the USA. To actually disarm the criminals would require truly draconian invasions of privacy - way, way, way beyond what we are all complaining about after 9/11. Therefore your only option is to disarm law abiding citizens, disarming criminals is a pipe-dream. If we were starting with a clean slate a total gun ban might make sense, we are not.

As for the idea that confronted with the likelyhood that their victim is armed will cause criminals to shoot first - a few thoughts. Most of the reasonably rational and intelligent criminals have already been detered by the likelyhood that their victims will be armed. The irrational and stupid won't be but they were just as likely to shoot you before as they are now. Of the remaining - hard-core that are rational enough to think out that they should shoot first to increase their odds of success some will fail and be shot themselves, some will succeed but will now be a major focus of the police who will A) Pursue a murder investigation much more aggresively than a mere mugging. and B) hopefully have more resources since they don't have to worry about all those crimes that never occured because the criminal *was* detered by his armed victim.

As for the trauma of having to defend yourself - I think any rational father would prefer the trauma of having shot a criminal to defend himself and his daughters over the trauma of his and his daughter being shot themselves. While the two that ran away may continue to be criminals the two that were killed most assuredly will NOT. This man has not only defended himself but also effected a 50% reduction in crime from that particular population of 4 (now 2) criminals. He is not a "hero" he is indeed a hero, there is no need for the scare quotes. I will conceed his heroism exacted a cost in the trauma suffered by himself and his daughters but I would submit that a lack of heroism would have likely had just as high, if not a much higher cost.

Re:Best DRM scheme to date

[overunderunderdone]

Any legitimate statistics to back that up, bucko?
I'm not the original poster but here is a study with a few statistics Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns (warning: this is a PDF) - his was a national study on a county-by-county basis evaluating the effect of right-to-carry laws. It found that counties that introduced right-to-carry laws saw a murder fall by 8.5%, rape fall by 5% and aggrevated assault fall by 7%. You'll have to read the study itself to evaluate it's methodology & raw data - most competing studies that dispute his claims have been done on a state by state rather than county by county basis (such as the study commisioned by the Brady Campaign to disprove Lott's findings). The reason he chose to do it by county is that in many of the state laws counties or munipalities that dominate certain counties have broad discretion in how they issue permits - other state laws explicitly exempt certain localities. For example how good is state data from Pennsylvania in measuring the effect of handgun legislation when Philidelphia (where much of the crime occurs) is exempted from the state law.

How many crimes have you heard of thwarted because someone brandished a Smith and Wesson
Personally only a few - they show up in the local paper from time to time. Of course completely deterred crimes where not even an attempt was made would be impossible to measure except by inference (as in Lott's study) National polls indicate that people use guns defensively against criminal attacks somwhere between 760,000 and 3.5 million times per year (Kleck, Gary and marc Gertz, "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun" 86 Journal of Criminal Law and Ciminology 86 - fall 1995). Data from the Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey from 1979 to 1987 indicate that the risk for serious injury from a criminal attack is 2.5 times greater for women offering no resistance than for women resisting with a gun (Southwick, 1996).

Not news, just propaganda!

[standards]

This is industry propaganda - they "want" to support the Macintosh, but they "can't" due to the "limited availability of Mac software".

Or, perhaps we could re-phrase their double-speak:

"We don't like Apple's attitude. Therefore, we're going to hose their customers... not by saying that Apple is wrong, but by saying that the Mac platform is poorly supported by the software industry! Heh, that'll learn them".

Again, the customers are in the middle.... between the computer industry, which has a disdain for controlling their customers and industry self-overregulation, and the "DRM" industry, whose only purpose is to control customers.

Since Apple was technically correct in their claims, the DRM folk could only counter by kicking Apple between the legs.

Let's read this article and it's topic as it should be - a power-play by the DRM industry, against Apple's ideal of fully supporting it's customer base.

Re:Not news, just propaganda!

[Melantha_Bacchae]

standards wrote:

> Since Apple was technically correct in their
> claims, the DRM folk could only counter by kicking
> Apple between the legs.

Well, they tried. Then Apple sold a Mac to a college student, who set up his own basement, professional quality, music studio. Then Apple sold a Mac to a small business studio who produced a documentary that played in theaters in New York and LA. Just think how many more college student musicians and small business studios there are or could be out there!

Unless the Hollings' bill passes and forces the acceptance of DRM, Apple will have the last laugh. Piracy may or may not hurt the media industries. Only Apple has the power to destroy them - by democratizing media creation like they did for desktop publishing. When the power to sing songs and tell stories returns to the people, the evil cartels of media sharks will be no more.

"They bind our hearts: 'Let's sell them again and again!'
Our plan understands the sea; we can wait for her coming."
From the song "Infanto no Musume" in the Japanese version of Mothra (1961).

Re:Not news, just propaganda!

[ReverendRyan]

"We don't like Apple's attitude. Therefore, we're going to hose their customers... not by saying that Apple is wrong, but by saying that the Mac platform is poorly supported by the software industry! Heh, that'll learn them".

The funny thing is, this whole thing makes me want to run out and buy a Mac to support Apple. If Apple is not going to "support" DRM by forcing it on thier customers, then I'm just going to have to join that "unsupported" customer base.

Hmmmm

[IamTheRealMike]

but if the content is locked out of the Mac for that reason, do I really want it anyway?

Who knows, but I expect some people will try and figure out a way around it anyway. Look at how much effort has been put into cracking QuickTime in order to allow Linux users to watch .... adverts? Trailors and Apple ads basically. So I guess the answer is whether people want content or not isn't really related to the technology used.

Macs shmacs

[Winterblink]

What about the fact that nobody outside of the US can even SEE the site?

It just works - at least most of the time...

[Lechter]

...as long as Sony, AOL/Time Warner, etc will allow it to...

Well this fits with Apple's Switch campaign. After all when Ellen Feiss is inspired (by whatever means) to combine her DVD of The Wizard of Oz with a particular Pink Floyd score she has on CD. She won't be pleased when her Mac beeps at her telling her that Sony won't let her rip the CD, and Time Warner won't let her copy their film...

After all if your whole marketing ploy is that people can use your computer to do what they think they should be able to do and do it easily; then you would want them to be able to exercize their "Fair Use" rights.

Don't know if it's been said yet...

[Zergwyn]

...but it is vitally important that you actually let Apple know if you like their stance! I have seen posts already that say something to the effect of 'I applaud Apple for their policy...'. Don't tell us (the slashdot audience), tell Apple. They are about to come up against the big sword that hangs over all who would try to hold out, and this sword packs power: exlusive content. Media is going to come out in formats that are DRM exclusive. We say now that if it's DRM, what good is it? But what if the next Lord of The Rings was available in a DRM format only, or what if it was something else we really wanted? This isn't about just dumb movies or boy bands, this is about the future of all media.

Apple is going to come under pressure from its own customers to include support for this stuff. If we want them to stay on the high road and not curb consumer's rights, we need to tell them, both in words and with our wallets when possible. The same goes for any company that takes a similar stance. It may behoove you to go to their feedback page and tell them what you think, before they become convinced that nobody cares.

p2p?

[pxnoll]

shutting them out of a legit service will fight p2p how? ;/

What they really mean...

[AtariDatacenter]

"We didn't want to go through all of the waste of creating compatiblity with a minority of users running Apple (or Linux for that matter). So, we will use this as an opportunity to forward our own issues and blame it on a lack of suitable DRM. So, we'll deflect the issue, and advance one of our own goals at the same time."

whooperty do

[RestiffBard]

so? Doesn't work with linux either does it? who cares? apple, stick to your guns.

Do Americans Want Freedom or Bread and Circuses?

[FreeUser]

The real question that is likely to be answered is

"Do Americans care more about the freedoms for which hundreds of thousands of their forfather's died, or the Bread and Circuses Hollywood offers?"

In truth, the question will likely become more generic when this dreck is exported to the rest of the world:

"Will people care more about the bread and Circuses America's Hollywood offers them, or the freedoms they, their parents, and their grandparents have died trying to secure for them?"

Depressingly, the former will likely fall into the "Take away any liberties you like, but don't take away my Seinfeld!" here in the states. However, with hardware made in Taiwan and GNU/Linux displacing Windows in governments (and to some degree on the street) in most of the non-American world, the answer the rest of the world gives to the question will be very intersting, and I suspect a very rude surprise to the copyright cartels of New York and Hollywood, and those software and hardware purveyors that kowtow to them.

Re:And I'm going to miss this how?-NOT!

[Anonymous Coward]

The story could have been writen about Linux as well. No DRM and plenty of tools for fooling around with audio and video. Bet the studios don't like us either.

Put This in an Ad Now!!!

[toupsie]

CNET reports that the Macintosh is being shut out of online movie services like Movielink, and connects it to the Mac's lack of digital-rights management

This is what consumers want. Everytime business puts barriers to entertainment in front of consumers, they bypass it. People really, really like to be entertained and will go to some outlandish methods to obtain it -- Gladiators anyone?I like Apple's philosphy towards DRM, its a social issue not a technology issue. "Don't steal Music!" as it said on the sticker on my iPod.

This is no biggie for Apple. Just remember:
1) How long does it take to download a film than to drive to Blockbuster and get a DVD?
2) Would you rather watch a film on a 27" TV or a 17" Computer Monitor?
3) Apple has no DRM! You computer is free to read and write what you want! Its like Linux except it has a usable desktop environment and has great consumer apps...iMovie anyone?

Good.

[sulli]

Fuck 'em. I don't want Movielink anyway if it means I can't control my PC.

Again: FUCK 'EM. Let them go bankrupt without my help.

another quote

[EccentricAnomaly]

also from the article: But Mac choices for file swapping are severely limited compared to options for the PC. Two of the most popular services--Kazaa and Morpheus--do not support the Mac in their latest versions.

so the article is saying that there will be no movies for mac because there's no DRM on mac, and people could copy the movies, burn them to DVDs, upload them onto a windows machine, and put them on P2P networks??

silly hollywood.

Re:another quote

[Brendan Byrd]

Two of the most popular services--Kazaa and Morpheus--do not support the Mac in their latest versions.

What about Hotline and FTP? What about the Gnuttela protocol?

Re:another quote

[MoneyT]

or KDX, Carracho (or however the heck it's spelled) and all the ones listed here

Both parties must agree to keep it a secret.

[seichert]

The problem with DRM is that both parties do not necessarily want to keep it (the movie, song, etc) a secret. DRM technology attempts to create a high enough incentive for the customer to want to keep it a secret. So far nothing has been able to do this.

How to beat DRM

[mdechene]

DRM is only effective at keeping good, computer-confused citizens from using their computers to their full potentials.

Good IP thiefs will remain good IP thiefs indefinately.

Want to copy a DRM'd song? Wire the speaker-out to the line-in on another computer and record it as a Wav, then MP3 it. Want to copy a DRM'd video? Use a camcorder. Or better yet. Use one of those video cards that sends it to a VCR, DVD-R, or HI-8, and record the video output from the screen. Seriously, DRM will not work against pirates, and only serves to prevent legitimate users from using to their full potential.

And I spend months of my life prostituting myself working on this bunk..........

Tip of the iceberg

[rigmort]

I think this situation can be attributed to the loss of education market share by Apple over the last few years. Little kids are learning on Windows boxes, their high schools and colleges are teaching them Windows, and we should be surprised that they get out into the "real world" and choose Windows as a platform to code for?

Apple needs to do whatever it takes to "get 'em while they're young."

"DOS Computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form." - New York Times, November 26, 1991

Re:Tip of the iceberg

[0x0d0a]

No, only at *good* colleges. People at shitty colleges learn VB and Visual Studio.

So the Linux version oughtta be available........

[woobieman29]

About 2weeks before Movielink files for Chapter 13.....

Another Mac user

[xenofalcon]

In other news, the USSR provided free bread only to the poor people.

Wait, I'm getting free bread from Apple?

Audible.com

[Triv]

Audible did it right by apple - you can buy their files from audible.com (and they're CHEAP ;), download 'em to your Mac and (get this): play them anywhere! You can play 'em on an iPod (or other MP3 player), play 'em on your mac or even burn 'em to CDs. You can make backups. You can transfer to different media. It's a proprietary audio format, sure, but one so transparent that the only thing it prevents you from doing is filesharing it. I mean, you can, but it won't work without your login and password. It seems like the perfect system to me: You wouldn't think of sharing it because it won't work anyway, but what's the point when what you want is cheap, easy to get and freely portable?

DRM can work for all concerned, in a way that doesn't violate anyone's rights and stil pays the artists. Why hasn't anyone else tried this?

Triv

Re:Audible.com

[Triv]

You want to archive, you got it. If audible goes out of business the files you've downloaded will still work. If you cancel your subscription your files will still work. If you get a new computer AND audible tanks you might have a problem - there'd be no server to validate your login with, right? So what do you do?

Easy. You burn the files to CD and rip them as MP3s. You need to be careful that it doesn't sound like shit (it took a few tries for me to do it. I wasn't pirating or anything, I just wanted to see if it could be done. And it can :) but it's definitely possible.

Any other problems? ;)

Triv

Nothing to miss here.

[Glendale2x]

Darn... now I have to watch movies with my DVD player. Oh, the agony! (Give me a break...)

But really... DRM is something I'm glad it isn't on my Mac. Restrictions like that keep me *away* from Windows and steer my preference to MacOS X and Linux/*BSD.

But doesn't "Digital Rights Management" sound nice and happy? My guess is Joe average consumer hears that and go "Ooo, my rights are being protected online! I want that!" Anyway that's what popped into my mind when I saw that option in WMP, but I know better. ;)

~Seth

Just the beginning

[Zelet]

Wait til Palladium. When the rest of the world snubs your platform/OS... then what are you going to do?

Re:Just the beginning

[White Roses]

Continue to give them the finger I press my one button mouse with.

You can have my Mac when you pry the mouse from my cold dead hand, Corporate America!

Who cares?

[gsfprez]

This story is 100% bullshit. None of the pay-for-stale_media services has ever worked out. Yet, this article touts that these services are the wave of the future...?! Its not news to call listen-per-pay the future.. its and damn lie.

So the RIAA approves a few crippled download services and the MPAA approves a few crippled download services... so what? Its been done before... failures of Biblical proportions. Why didn't they report that?

In the real world, DVD's are open media (thanks to our friend who's paying for it with his freedom)... and what's going on in the world of DVD sales?

DVD sales are making them money hand over fist.. they can't buy enough trucks to take the money to the bank fast enough.

This story is bullshit because it doesn't note that 1/2 of the protection was taken off of a DVD last year in a underreported coup.. and what happend? Hary Potter.. which was both un-Macrovisioned AND was on the P2P nets long before the theatrical release became the biggest selling DVD of all time..

from the article..."[the iMac] also has a large contingent of early adopters, who likely would be interested in trying out technologies such as video on demand. "

That is not news... that is bullshit.

note to c|net... those iMac adopters can ALREADY watch Harry Potter, you NONCES!. They bought the open media format on DVD and are already watching it! Do you have to practice to be this stupid?

the real truth will be found out in the next 5 years.. who will proseper - open media or crippled formats? The trending up of DVD sales and the trending down of CD sales... which are being more and more crippled each day. Or the new cripple-ware services....

I'm putting my money on the open media standards....

What the article also doesn't do a good enough job of it pointing out WHY Final Cut Pro, TiBooks and linux renderfarms are the darling of Hollywood.. and all content creators....

The reason is.. they are not DRM-crippled.

Damnit... it should be against the law to call your site news.com when you are nothing but Microsoft and now, DRM shills... with no actual desire to report news.

Re:Who cares?

[goon america]

Damnit... it should be against the law to call your site news.com when you are nothing but Microsoft and now, DRM shills...

So just call your site news.com.com.com

Re:Who cares?

[srmalloy]

So the RIAA approves a few crippled download services and the MPAA approves a few crippled download services... so what? Its been done before... failures of Biblical proportions. Why didn't they report that?

Because if the MPAA and RIAA can hide the fact that they've tried it in the past, then they can watch it tank and point to the fact that their download services tanked as prima facie evidence that it's the widespread piracy is what caused it to tank, therefore stricter and more restrictive laws and policies need to be enacted to prevent this flagrant abuse of copyright.

Re:Who cares?

[Dr_LHA]

And you've lost the "abolity" to spell. :-)

Politics?

[jaredcoleman]

According to the Terms of Use you need to download the Movielink Manager Software to use the service. Is there any reason why they couldn't just port this software for Mac, without breaking their DRM schema? Does the Windows operating system offer any inherent advantage to DRM over Apple, or is this just a political statement?

Re:Politics?

[LostCluster]

This is a business statement. DRM can be built on top of Mac just as easily as it has been on Windows. However, Microsoft has paid to assist in DRM efforts, Apple refuses to spend a penny on it.

Apple business model

[pulse2600]

1) Listen to what customers want 2) Create a product around their customers' desires 3) ????? 4) PROFIT!!!!!

Re:Apple business model

[Jippy_]

No no no..

3) "One more thing..."

Thanks, Apple!

[AlgUSF]

"without interfering with the experience of consumers have not yet been invented".

Amen! Thank god a computer manufacturer is finally thinking of the consumers that use it's products, rather then trying to make alliances with the *AA crowd (RIAA/MPAA, movielink, ...etc...). Right now there isn't a foolproof method of DRM, that doesn't affect a user's fair use of copyrighted material.

WM and Real DRM works on a Mac

[benwaggoner]

This is all rather besides the point. Even if Apple doesn't provide system-level DRM, application-level DRM works just fine in the formats MovieLink is using (RealMedia and Windows Media). And Windows, while they talk about system-level DRM eventually with Palladium, doesn't have it either today.

So, whatever MovieLink might claim is their reason, they aren't technical. They probably don't want to do it for marketshare reasons, and are using Apple's DRM statements (which are really rather mild) as an excuse/flogging horse.

solution is simple

[g4dget]

P2P distribution is a hassle and selection is limited. On-demand movie services just need to become cheap and convenient enough that consumers are willing to pay for the convenience. Then DRM isn't needed.

the Movie Industry Animal Farm

[kipple]

all software is equal, but some software is more equal.

Or:

[Anonymous Coward]

"We don't like Apple's attitude. Therefore, we're going to hose their customers... not by saying that Apple is wrong, but by saying that the Mac platform is poorly supported by the software industry! Heh, that'll learn them".

A more likely interpretation, in my opinion:

"We don't have the technical competence to even attempt to support macintosh users, and we can't be bothered or can't afford to spend even a nominal sum on researching how this would be done, so we're going to pretend this is apple's fault somehow."

It's the same principle as when a cat runs headlong into a wall and then walks off nonchalantly in an attempt to pretend that it did that on purpose, and it is very common in the world of macintosh software ports. See also "half-life".

(My first guess at an interpretation was going to be "We locked ourselves in to a propeitary, windows-only solution for streaming our movies, and we're going to pretend that it's apple's fault that we're short-sighted and don't care about marginal markets.", but that apparently isn' the case as they're using WMP and RealPlayer, both of which are available for the mac!)

Unfortunately, this isn't true

[Sanity]

As Steve Jobs has pointed out is that DRM's dirty little secret is that it does not work and will always be hackable.

When the Pentium 5 incorporates DRM technology, and most people upgrade to it, then we will have problems.

Software DRM may always be hackable, but hardware DRM could be a much tougher nut to crack.

Re:Unfortunately, this isn't true

[CoolVibe]

People don't _have_ to "upgrade" to pentium 5. They can either buy a Mac, or run an open operating system.

We are the consumers, they need to flog their stuff to us. What happens if we don't _buy_ DRM tech? Right, it fizzles, just like the millions of dollars that people invested in it.

They are forgetting what a consumer really wants: A convenient way to watch their movies/listen to music. DRM will complicate things, so consumers might get burned by this once, and never buy content from an outlet that supports Digital Restrictions Manglement again.

Software DRM will be around for quite a while though, since many people will still have "old" machines laying around.

I'm going to enjoy watching this turkey fizzle.

Re:Unfortunately, this isn't true

[Sanity]

What happens if we don't _buy_ DRM tech? Right, it fizzles

Just imagine, you are Joe consumer, you are in Bestbuy, and you are picking out your next computer. The sales guy says "Hey, this is the latest Pentium 5, and it has this thing called DRM which gives it the ability to play movies and music from the Internet!". You ask "hey, but what about that AMD over there?". He replies "ah, you don't want that, it doesn't have DRM".

Which do you buy?

Re:Unfortunately, this isn't true

[Alien Being]

"Hey, this is the latest Pentium 5, and it has this thing called DRM which gives it the ability to play movies and music from the Internet!"

Cool! Can I trade-in my DIVX player for it?

Re:Unfortunately, this isn't true

[Ryan Amos]

Yeah, we all know how well that worked for the Xbox...

Re:Unfortunately, this isn't true

[CoolVibe]

Well, I have been tainted with too much knowledge about DRM. So I'd prolly go with the AMD. For me to imagine to be Joe Sixpack is impossible. Yet I have an inquisitive character. Even if I didn't know what DRM was, I would research it, find out what it really is and probably not go for it.

But that's me of course. When Joe Consumer asks me which he should buy (i.e. Joe Consumer just happens to be family of mine who seeks my advice) I would recommend against DRM. You should too.

Re:Unfortunately, this isn't true

[CoolVibe]

I'd probably ask "Ooh, DRM... I'll just go home and ask that nephew computer whizzkid of mine if it's any good". Then come back later after having asked. "No sorry. I heard that DRM stuff is bad. I'll take the AMD. It's cheaper anyway."

At least, that's what _should_ happen. If relatives/acquaintences ask, recommend AGAINST DRM. Try to explain why as high-level possible. Tell them that DRM will violate their rights. That they won't be able to back up their music/movies if they want to.

A couple points of technical followup

[benwaggoner]

Some technical points on Mac DRM:

Windows Media for MacOS only supports WM DRM v1, which only supports the older WMV7 codec, not the WMV8 MovieLink is using. Presumably they're using DRM 7.1 (7.0 was cracked). However, MovieLink will run on Windows 98, which doesn't support the Secure Audio Path, so there isn't a huge technical DRM difference here.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/wm 7/ drm/offering.asp

Real's subscription service is available for MacOS X with the full functionality of Windows, so their DRM is presumably feature complete cross-platform. And I believe for Linux as well, but I haven't checked.

Re:A couple points of technical followup

[benwaggoner]

Specifically, MacOS X and PocketPC don't have a decoder for the ACELP.net voice audio codec. Microsoft licensed that from a third party who didn't provide updated binaries. WM9 uses a new voice codec developed internally that they'll be able to deploy cross-platform.

Re:gnu/bsd movies

[boy_of_the_hash]

With the number of producer wannabees, and the poor quality of pro studio films, I expect the film (and music) industrie(s) will be feeling the heat from free media alternatives within a few years. Enjoy your copyrights!

Yep, alternatively we could develop a equatable technology to DRM in favour of consumers. How about a payment system where the money is returned to the consumers account after their DRM 'lease' is up?

Seriously, if apple's were the only TCPA free platform, that's exactly what I'd be using.

One of many DRM issues with Macs...

[agent oranje]

A week ago, I went to cdnow.com to look up an album. To my surprise, they had per-song downloads at a somewhat reasonable cost. As I only wanted one song, I read through their FAQs to find out if I'd have any issues playing the song under MacOS X, they had the following section about supported formats:

Music can be encoded in a variety of formats, such as MP3, a2b, MPEG, Liquid Audio and RealAudio. Some formats, such as MP3, can be played on a variety of players (programs that play various audio formats), while other encoding formats must be played using a particular player.

Okay, that's nice and vauge. However, MP3s aren't an issue ,or MPEGS, and RealAudio I can manage. A2B...? No idea. And then there was Liquid Audio, which has clients for Mac and Windows, as well as plugins for RealPlayer. So all is good! I can play the file under pretty much any circumstances!

So, of course, it wasn't mp3, or mpeg, or realaudio. It was the Liquid Audio format...

I downloaded and installed the player, which runs under classic a-ok, until you actually try to play the files. Upon searching, it is explicitly incompatible with MacOS X, as are the RealPlayer plugins to listen to the files as well. There are no alternative players. In reading a bit more, I also found that Microsoft bought all of the intellectual property rights from the creators of Liquid Audio in September, so now the task of writing a player for MacOS X falls into their lap...

Fair use rights...? What are those? I paid money for this song, and can't listen to it. In speaking to cdnow's customer service, they informed me that I needed to get the proper player for my operating system. This was in reply to my saying "There isn't a player for OS X."

So, Mac users, linux users, BSD users, and the rest of the gang unfortunately get it up the poop chute when it comes to DRM-based media. I paid for a song and couldn't listen to it, as the DRM won't let me! I'd be more bitter about my lack-of-refund if I didn't get the song 10 minutes afterwards from my local friendly P2P clients... at a much higher bitrate, too... If getting things LEGALLY were as easy as getting them pirated, maybe people wouldn't be stealing so much music, eh?

Re:Mac versions always late, if ever

[klparrot]

And then only after sending repeated e-mails to the developers to let them know there's interest.

That doesn't mean there's enough interest. The Mac market share is under 5%. There's not often much money to be made porting to Mac, at least not relative to the amount you can make writing software for Windows.

Sad but true, it's a vicious cycle. Windows gets market share because there's a larger market (and thus more profit to be made) developing for Windows and so Windows is a more appealing platform since more software is available.

Of course, with Microsoft doing everything it can to drive consumers away these days (Palladium, FUD, etc.), Mac may have a chance. I hope so; I love my iBook.

Damned if they do, damned if they don't...

[BlackBolt]

If Apple includes DRM, they lose sales (especially the 'Alpha Geek' crowd who are flocking to Macs for OSX, and more importantly, *me*). If they don't include it, moronic sites like this try to block Macs as a whiny political protest against Apple's free will.

If the customer has to go against his ethical code to own some movie he could just buy at the corner store anyway, is it really worth it? I've always bought all my media stuff in 'real' versions, and I'll keep doing that. Downloading movies ain't really practical on a 33.6 faxmodem... And watching them on a computer screen, even the superfine TiBook LCD, just can't beat my Sony bigscreen, and pisses off the missus to no end.

This is merely another example of Windows-based coders ignoring the rest of the world, just with a politically-correct excuse this time. I'm still waiting for Counterstrike on the Mac, btw. Not gonna happen? Fine. I don't plonk, I boycott. Me and my friends present our 'boycott list' to each other every week and then try to kill sales. Good fun, and plotting goes great with chicken wings and beer.

And when Movielink fails in 6 months, as it probably will, the studios will inevitably find a scapegoat besides their own stubborn stupidity. Probably piracy, hackers, or muslim terrorists, despite the fact that they've been refusing customers and have a bad dotcom-like business plan. Stupid.

And this article tries very hard to make the Macs' nearly complete lack of DRM sound like *A Very Bad Thing*. AS IF. Nice spin, Big Brother. Freedom is Slavery. Good is evil, evil is good. Trust Big Brother.

BlackBolt

But Apple doesnt NEED DRM

[skinfitz]

They have it all covered. At the bottom of anything that mentions iTunes it says "Don't steal music."

Who is going to disobey that?

I got DRM on Linux.

[BroadbandBradley]

part of the crossover plugin windows media player instalation....

Of course, the website tells me I need to be on a Windows machine all the same.

Where can I email Apple?

[conan_albrecht]

I bought a Mac a year ago and love it. Before that it was PCs and linux. Does anyone have a link to a good person in Apple (not necessarily SJobs) I can email? We need to tell them we CARE about Apple's stance on DRM and we use them because of Apple's support for consumers rather than for big companies.

Apple is feeling A LOT of pressure from companies and others with "power". It needs to hear from its customers that they'll keep buying because its still open. It might not be GNU'd like Linux, but it is certainly more open.

I hope Apple can withstand the increasing pressure for DRM and whatever else over time.

Re:Where can I email Apple?

[Knobby]

You can send feedback to Apple using feedback@apple.com.

This is a good idea. Everyone should let them know that we care about the freedom to use our computers as we see fit.

Re:Where can I email Apple?

[foniksonik]

I see it as a non-concern. This is an impulse buy gimmick for college students who can pay for movies on their daddies credit card and then view them on their parent purchased PC. The rest of us own a DVD player and a TV (or two) and can watch movies like civilized human beings (with rewind, fast forward, camera angles, extra content, scene browsing, subtitles, etc.).

VOD = Pr0nOD and that's the only market it will ever be king of. Why? People will try out VOD for real movies and find out it is cheap and lacks quality and/or options, which again is why Pr0n will be king --> match made in heaven.

Re:Where can I email Apple?

[Chris Johnson]

*g* makes me picture a 'switch' campaign:

Yeah, I used to use a PC. I got to download pr0n and watch it using a special service on Windows XP.

Then when college was over, Mom said I couldn't use her credit card, and the PC blew up, and I said to hell with it and got a Mac. It was like a monastic self-denying thing. Or so I thought.

Now, I get laid! Thanks, Apple!

Oh, and I still download pr0n, but it's off usenet now, and this time I get to keep it. Get stuffed, Movielink!

*g*

Mozilla users also screwed

[Sinistar2k]

Wow, they (Movielink) really want you to be 100% on the Microsoft bandwagon. Not only must you use MS's OS, you have to use their browser:

Thank you for your interest in Movielink. We want you to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience that Movielink delivers; however, you currently do not meet our minimum system requirements. You will need to adjust the following:

• You need Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher - Upgrade Now

If they want me to take part in the powerful Internet movie rental experience so much, they should stop that silly browser blocking. And honestly, switching to Mozilla has been the best browser upgrade I've ever made.

Can we say arrogant?

[danaris]

OK, #1, how do you know that his computer's bad? Maybe his TV's just even better. And, #2, do you define "bad" as "doesn't have a huge screen and incredible speakers"? I sure don't. I would say that having those things would be a big bonus, but it's silly to say that one's computer is bad because one's television is better for watching movies. I mean, what the heck's a TV for , after all?

Also, just because your computer is big, has good speakers, and is in a comfortable location doesn't mean that everyone has your fortune. I imagine there are more people (and more Mac owners) who use their TV as their primary media viewing station than their computer.

Just a little dose of perspective...

Dan Aris

This is why I will buy a Mac

[NitroAir]

This is precisely why I should support the platform which does without silly DRM garbage. When it starts being imbedded in hardware I will do my utmost to NOT use the features. The last time I watched a movie (not even on a computer) has been several months hence all this is hogwash. The quality of films has to go up before I even think of trading my computing freedoms for some movie flick.

Re:This is why I will buy a Mac

[IamTheRealMike]

This is precisely why I should support the platform which does without silly DRM garbage

Loose thinking I'm afraid. Actually, the Mac does indeed have some DRM in it, see QuickTime for instance. More to the point, Apple can reverse their stance at any time they like, there are no guarantees that in the future the iPod will make do with only a sticker. If you buy a Mac because it doesn't have DRM in it today, you're inherantly taking a chance by assuming there won't be any tomorrow, or the day after, or the day after that.

Major typo on slashdot and the internet

[t_allardyce]

Please stop this DRM misinformation. DRM does not stand for "Digital Rights Management" it stands for "Digital Restriction Mechanisms". This mistake has been circulating around the internet for several years now and its about time its corrected. People's opinions are being tainted by this blunder as "Rights Management" sounds like a good idea. If you don't want people to accuse you of spreading RIAA FUD please stop propagating this name.

Apple computers feature DRM-free environments, Palladium is a non-DRM free environment. which sounds better?

Re:Major typo on slashdot and the internet

[Chris Johnson]

How about 'Digital Rights Minimization'? :D

Clinton couldn't have stopped the DMCA

[yerricde]

Free speech in your precious USA was done in by Wee-Willy Clinton back in '98

The U.S. Congress passed both the DMCA and the Bono Act by "unanimous consent" aka "voice vote", a measure that requires the support of 81 percent of each house. (The Constitution provides that 20 percent opposition can force a roll-call vote.) The President can veto a bill, but it only takes 67 percent of each house to override the veto. So even if then-President Clinton had vetoed the DMCA, it wouldn't have made much difference.

Re:Clinton couldn't have stopped the DMCA

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that Clinton had a great deal to do with pushing the version of the DMCA that Valenti wanted.

There were alternatives in both House (Boucher) and Senate (Ashcroft) that would have outlawed circumvention only in cases of actual copyright infringement. I believe Boucher's bill may even have specified that the penalties for circumvention in that case would be proportional to the penalties for the type of infringement.

Valenti pronounced this unacceptable, sniffing in the press that only bills that outlawed circumvention in ALL cases would be "acceptable".

BTW, Gore introduced the bill to make SCMS copy protection mandatory on DAT recorders. He also made comments to the effect that the real solution was to change copyright law to make things easier for copy protection. Reading between the lines, it didn't sound like he had the public's rights in mind then, and once the DMCA came around, the meaning of those remarks became even more obvious.

Re:Clinton couldn't have stopped the DMCA

[overunderunderdone]

You mean to tell me that Bill Clinton was cozy with Hollywood (what a stunning revelation, who would have thought it?) That he supported the DMCA and that Ashcroft (Ashcroft!?!) was the "good guy" on this issue - with a more reasonable law that defended fair use rights? Stop!! You'll make my /. saturated brain implode!! It can't be!!... that doesn't conform to the simple caricatures that explain my world... too complex... doesn't compute... ahh.... *sticks fingers ears* and chants: "Republicans are evil, Ashcroft is Satan" as loudly as possible.

Yes, boycots work.

[rodentia]

Get it together. Are we already so besotted with the dreck this industry calls entertainment that we cannot imagine saying no?

Re:Yes, boycots work.

[Reziac]

I can't be bothered to climb up on the roof and replace the dead TV antenna, let alone download DRM'd crap!

Re:anyone know who to email?

[Karma Sink]

sjobs@apple.com

He actually reads it. I've worked in Apple support, and I've seen him respond to a customer's e-mail a few times. He's the big gun, and he'll notice if his mailbox gets slashdotted with praising e-mails on this subject.

Not all of us live in dorm rooms

[alexhmit01]

My computer is in the home office, although I sometimes pop my laptop open on the couch. I got two couches and a chair around the home theater. I watch DVDs, because there isn't enough easily accessible HD Content, but DVDs are decent. DivX is unwatchable, sorry. I think its great that you love you 21"/23" monitor, whatever.

I had an HTPC hooked up to my system, wasn't worth the trouble. However, your computer can't compare to a reasonable home theater system.

Projectors can be powered via computer, terrific. If you are blowing it up on a projector, you're NOT going to want DivX or other crap. You're going to want a MINIMUM of DVD quality, to minimize the MPEG artifacts.

An HTPC can power a projector quite nicely (there was a Yamaha that I fell in love with at Tweeter, but can't justify dropping $10k on it...), scaling video from DVDs up to 720p, etc., but it doesn't change the fact that you are customizing a computer to serve as AV equipment.

Sorry, but a cheap 27" television, w/ mediocre DVD player, and a low-low-low end surround sound system (we're talking $500 total) is going to blow away watching a computer monitor with "AWESOME" computer speakers.

A reasonable HT system ($5k-$10k, so midrange) really blows it away, and the good systems are even more impressive.

Alex

Re:Get Audio Hijack for Mac OS X

[AKnightCowboy]

DRM simply will NEVER work. If a DRM'd movie can be seen on a computer screen, the video can be captured. If the DRM'd sound file from a movie or CD can be heard on a computer speaker, the audio can be captured.

People like you will still be saying this the day they implant the I/O jack into your brain. "Look, if I can think about something it can be copied *ZZAAAP* OK maybe not."

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

And So It Begins

[Sloppy]

Today it's just some obscure service the nobody has ever heard of: Movielink. Next month, it'll be one more. Then more, then more. At some point in the future, it'll get to the point where a Mac users speak the word "sacrifice."

Some will say the sacrifice is nothing to them, because Freedom is more important. Others will disagree, but bear the burden. And other people will choose to not be Mac users at all, and will give themselves to the dark lord in Redmond instead.

And that is when the people at Apple will have to decide whether to give their customers what they want (ability to play with the mainstream) or give their customers what they want (remain free of this stupidity).

I remember the last time Mac users wanted to play with the mainstream. Apple got a license from the DVDCCA and now their machines come with DVD player software, which works ... in an arbitrarily-crippled manner, in accordance with DVDCCA's wishes.

Best of luck to 'em!

[inkswamp]

I wish only the best luck to any business that wants to exclude me (and others on the same platform I have) from its pool of potential customers. They will need all the luck they can get if that's their approach.

And if being excluded from surrogate couch-potato activities like this is the price I pay for owning a machine and OS that isn't tainted by shortsighted DRM concepts, then so be it. It's more than worth it to me. Besides, when I sit down at my computer, I do so to work or to absorb information or to communicate. On the rare occasion that I want to veg, I do it in from the TV anyway. I think these business ventures of delivering entertainment via the Internet are bizarre. Do people really want to use their computers and the Internet as a TV/cinema substitute?

Re:Apple ALREADY uses DRM?

[Knobby]

You need an Audible account to purchase the tracks, but once they're on your iPod, there's really nothing stopping you from sucking it off with any one of a dozen utilities.

So What Else is New

[cryptochrome]

So movielink is ignoring mac users - should I be surprised? Maybe they are specifically shunning us for lack of DRM, but it's just as likely they wouldn't have bothered developing for the platform anyway since it's a smaller market. To say nothing of Microsoft pressure. This could just be a cheap, convinient jab on their part. And a meaningless one at that, since this service is a few dollars too expensive and a few years too early for anyone.

If there's one thing Mac users are used to, it's getting locked out of content. Realplayer and windows media player took forever to make it to Mac OS and then Mac OS X. Every codec in development always makes it to the mac platform last, often long after it's available for Windows.

DivX:) AVIs still aren't supported properly even with the codecs, because Quicktime still can't handle variable bitrate AVI audio (a problem people have been complaining about for years now) - which is not part of the official AVI standard but is nonetheless the defacto standard for this supposedly obsolete but nonetheless popular format.

As far as know, content is something you fight for. The only solution that even comes close to no-hassle, no-conversion, no-wait playback is the cross-platform Video Lan Client, although it has a lousy interface. Thank god for OS X, which tied us into the *nix community, which has many of the exact same problems.

Inspiration For Creative Users?

[Grail]

I wonder if the lack of poor quality MPEGs will inspire Mac OS X users to go out and create their own content? After all - if you have the tools such as iMovie, the iLink video camera, a little creativity and some time (since you're not wasting time watching movies you've already seen), it's not too hard to imagine you'd at least experiment with making a movie, is it?

No doubt when you've made your movie, you'll share it with your housemate. What about the rest of the world?

Imagine when Gnutella is full of home-made movies - we'll have an entire community based around producing, viewing and critiquing home-made movies. Maybe one day we'll have a "Videoforge" component of the OSDN network?

Perhaps I'm being a little too optimistic, but I expect that between the affordablility of production equipment, the ease of use of Apple's movie making software, and the lack of conventient alternatives, we'll see many more independent movie artists flexing their wings.

Re:Do Americans Want Freedom or Bread and Circuses

[nicodaemos]

I was like all for the freedom thing, but then someone told me that it wasn't free and that the price was something outrageous like eternal vigilance or something. That's crazy! I mean who needs that when I can watch 'Friends' for free and 'Legally Blonde' at Blockbuster for $4?!?

C'mon, the founding fathers should have thought their marketing plan through a little bit better. Instead of having you pay this big long term fee, they should have made it more a la carte. For example, give the base freedom of the right to breath away for free. Then every month you would get the chance to get an additional freedom by paying a small fee. People would pay extra for the right to speak, the right to pursue happiness, etc, etc. It's quite different than what most are used to, but remember they only pay for what they use and they can the stop the program at any time. And if they act during one of the infomercials, they can get the right to read the freedom EULA free, just for being a loyal customer. How great is that!

You've fallen for the corporate newspeak

[Tofuhead]

Artist's rights != DRM, and for that matter, copyright infringement != piracy. The corpos love to hear people use and perpetuate these terms, because they can use them as leverage to manipulate how the public views and treats such concepts.

Re: artist's rights, I'm fine with artists getting paid for what they do. I'd go so far as to venture a guess that most other people are fine with it too.

What I'm not okay with is being treated like a criminal every time I buy an overpriced CD, the profits from which go to fund more research into ensuring that I am treated like a criminal more effectively. Ineffective legislators, greedy content distributors, Hollywood-sympathetic tech companies, artists who need to eat (face it, superstars are rare, and some of the best music comes from people who would eschew that lifestyle anyway), and general customers disgusted with the prices of CDs (the file-sharers) are equally responsible for the current state of affairs.

< tofuhead >

Re:A little OT

[toupsie]

And except that it's not free as in speech, free as in beer, or portable to non-Apple hardware

What's the point in having an OS that is "free as in speech" when Word Processors for it are completely worthless? I will take M$ Word or AppleWorks over OpenOffice and AbiWord any day of the week. Steve Jobs has never told what I could and could not write on my Mac.

it's like Windows except that it has no DRM, it's based on BSD, it doesn't have as many games, and it doesn't run on commodity hardware

How many different versions of Tetris do you need to have? All the major, popular games are ported to Mac. I play Quake, Woflenstein, Sims and Warcraft III all the time. I prefer well built hardware that has an OS tailored to it as opposed to "commodity" hardware where I am endlessly trying to find drivers, solve hardware conflicts and other nit picking problems.

I'd also take issue with your assertion that Linux does not have a usable desktop environment. It may not be a brilliant desktop environment. It may not be your preferred desktop environment. You may even consider it a sub-par desktop environment. However, it is quite usable.

Its usable for taking K-K00L screenshots at the latest attempt of Gnome and KDE trying to copy the Windows GUI with an Aqua Theme.

Linux has its place...on my server rack...not on my desktop.

Meh

[Large Green Mallard]

As a mac user, I must say I don't care all that much. I'm a bit peeved that Quicktime has the DRM that it does, like the ability to flag certain movies as being unable to save/copy from, like The Two Towers preview.. which means every time I open it up, I have to go and delete all the crap sprite tracks so I can just watch the promo.

Small price to pay for actually having control over the data on my hard drive and the easy ability to back it up :)

Re:what about linux?

[generic-man]

Linux is used by a bunch of irritating hippies who feel that they have the right to steal all the copyrighted content that they want.

Therefore, Linux is unsupported.

I get a kick out of this.

[mindstrm]

DivX is unwatchable. That's why it's so popular I guess.

We all know DIVX is not the same high quality as a DVD. We know this right away because of the really tiny size compared to DVD.

I don't know about you.. but I watch movies to get a laugh, to hang out with friends, and to just generally see something new; I don't do it so I can hear and see very tiny spec of detail in the movie, so I can critique how "good" my home theater is.

I've had several movie parties driven by divx.. and the room full of laughing, joking, relaxed people watching that new movie that just came out on the little 24" TV in my house tells me DIVX is just fine.

The DRM tax

[xnn]

Never mind that DRM is also about raising the cost of PARTICIPATING in the film/music industry.

A mac and an $800 audio interface (or an $800 camcorder and final cut) is equivalent to about $100000 of gear in 1990. Up that to millions in the mid 80s.

Right now, the same production facilities that studios use are falling into the hands of the masses. And, for the first time the means to distribute ones work to a widespread audience has never been easier or more apparent. Many (real) bands nowdays will actually buy their own studio setup for less than it costs to record for a few days in a professional studio. The movie production equivalent cannot be far off.

By locking down consumer machines so they can readily access only DRM media, the ball is kept in the studios court. Because you can bet that licensing DRM technology will not be cheap.

Don't care

[ryochiji]

I have a Netflix account and a DVD drive in my iBook. I couldn't give a hoot about MovieLink.

Besides, if it's really good (and for some reason still proprietary) someone will find a way to get it to work (if Apple doesn't). It might take longer than on the PC, but we'll get it sooner or later.

Stop decoding my ascii

[DunbarTheInept]

This message is encoded in a cryptic scheme known as ASCII, that substitutes numbers for English letters, spaces, and punctuation. I don't wish anyone to view it and hereby declare it to be copyrighted to me with no privileges given to any other party to view the material that begins on the next line.

Hello.

There. If you were able to read the above line, you just broke the law under the DMCA. Who cares that ASCII isn't very good encryption because every Tom, Dick, and Harry has tons of software that renders it into human readable form. According to the DMCA, how widespread the decryption knowlege is is not relevant to the issue.

Re:In other news...

[fenix down]

If it's WAAAAAAY over you're head, you wouldn't get a WHOOOSH! really, would you? You'd only get the WHOOOOSH! if it was just barely over your head or by one of your ears.

Maybe you mean to suggest that strained analogies equating Windows with metaphorical artistic poverty in an attempt to make /. editors seem like slightly less boorish hacks have those little whistly things like on Vortex footballs.

Those things are cool.

KID ROCK STARVES TO DEATH; MP3 PIRACY BLAMED

[Robspiere]

From The Onion, May 2000

http://www.theonion.com/onion3618/kid_rock_starves .html

Not a two sides issue

[0x0d0a]

This is not a "two sides" issue.

There are the starry-eyed idealists, who think that all information must be free. Sounds cute, but also sounds like the intellectuals promoting (and promising) communism, the five hour workday, global cooperation after the Leage of Nations was formed...

There are the teen thieves (you sorts, don't give me flack for using this term -- it has no legal meaning, and is only linked to the common usage of the word "theft", not the legal term). They want to be able to copy whatever they want to because they expect that somehow their Eminem will be made for them for free.

There are the artists and proponents of such (a far smaller group than you might think). They see sharing of music as a useful distribution channel for demos and teasers, and possibly even for eventual sales, if a tip-based market *turns out to be viable*, but are concerned that they might not have any stable source of income under such a scenerio.

There are the record publisher types, who combat copyright infringement wherever they find it, in the fear of losing control and profits.

There are the waverers (big group) who agree with most groups right after a rousing article from one side, but don't really feel "right" about any of the solutions so far.

There are the ulta-libertarians, who have decided that file sharing constitutes a free speech issue, and are battling based on constitutional grounds.

There are the pragmatists (kind of like most of the judges so far), that ignore the ideology or individual impacs, and have only interest in the long term impact of DRM or a lack thereof and the costs to the country/world/society.

There are the people who feel that creators have a moral right to whatever they create -- that they should *never* lose control over it. Courtney Love, I believe, said something along these lines.

There are the engineer types, who's main objection is having a really unpleasant (from the user perspective, in privacy or reliability or price) DRM system forced upon the user.

There are the hacker types, who are worried that DRM will keep them from mucking around with the guts of their systems.

All of these groups are quite distinct. There are sub-categories, and more groups I haven't listed. None of these agree particularly well with others. Apple doesn't fit in *any* of these factions above, though there's probably a fair number of their customers that fall into the "artist" group.

Anyway, to sum up -- there aren't two sides in this. There are a lot of major concerns. Apple has no interest in "taking sides" against anyone.

Apple does hardware. They really don't want it mucked up with a lot of poorly-done DRM crap, so they partly have an engineer perspective. They're worried about upsetting their users, both the "teen thief" and the "artists" variety. They probably also don't want to be at the recieving end of a lawsuit if their DRM is bypassable. Apple's already built DRM into their OS once (see the archaic and long-obsolete Copy Protect flag), and firmly decided that it was ineffective, and a complete pain in the ass.

Re:Do Americans Want Freedom or Bread and Circuses

[0x0d0a]

I certainly support freedom. Of course, that freedom includes the freedom of people to add DRM to the computer systems they sell, and the freedom of people to choose whether to buy or not buy it.

The Founding Fathers didn't give a rat's ass about whether you can get a weekly free beer at a bar. Their freedom of speech was to ensure that political speech wouldn't be silenced.

Re:Sosumi

[Etcetera]

Anyway, a bunch of recording industry giants, specifically Apple Records, if I'm not mistaken, got all upset because they though the inclusion of a microphone would begin to undermine the musical industry.

Almost, but not quite right.

Apple earlier had been sued by Apple Records (which owned the Beatles' songs) for trademark infringement over the name "Apple". The lawsuit was settled when Apple (computer) said it wouldn't enter the field of "music production" software or hardware.

When Apple decided to introduce "multimedia equipped computers with advanced music and audio generation capabilities" (for the time) Apple Records started waving red flags. As usual, Apple was far ahead of PC's in this regard (16-bit audio, etc...). In addition, Apple included several new system sounds, including one named "Xylophone". I don't recall specifically whether this was the result of an actual suit, or a threat of a suit, but someone in Apple System Software engineering decided to rename the "Xylophone" sound to "Sosumi" in protest. =)

For the record, this was when LC and IIsi were released. They were the newer generation of 32-bit color, 16-bit audio, cheap (relatively), and CD-ROM-equipped machines.

Re:anyone know who to email?

[0x0d0a]

Well, he sure as hell isn't going to read it after this.

Ten thousand emails reading "ThanX d00d, fight the power! I love j00 guys cuz j00 don't care about profits or nothing, just the little guy! Information should be free!"

Is apple dominating or being dominated?

[Erpo]

This is just the latest example of the challenges facing Apple in its battle to dominate digital media and other niche markets.

They have it backwards. Apple is dominating the digital media market when "[m]any--if not most--production studios use Apple's top-rated QuickTime Final Cut Pro content-creation and video-editing tools." Apple is being dominated when they add Digital Restriction Mechanisms to their software and hardware, to tempt movie moguls into providing video services for their customers.

It's important to remember that DRM does not enable digital content to be delivered online. DRM hog-ties consumers which makes them an attractive and helpless market for digital content. Big difference.

Violation of DMCA

[Billly Gates]

OMG@!!

He commited a crime via free speech!! Call the FBI and shutdown slashdot.org. Clearly this post is a circumvention device intended to bring down capitalism hollywood as we know it. Senator Fritz will not be pleased.

In other OTHER news...

[ctar]

Movielink also snubs non-US based users by IP address! That's right. I live in Japan, and I get an error screen saying 'sorry, Movielink is only offered to customers within the US' when I go to their webpage. When going through a proxy w/ a US based IP address, I go to the front page no problem...

I'm sure they have several reasons for doing this (most importantly because they don't want to hear from people who have slow download speeds complaining) but it is discrimination regardless...

not to gloat...

[fermion]

told you they were punishing Apple

Re:Mac versions always late, if ever

[error0x100]

It is sad, especially since these days it is not all that difficult to be cross-platform for most types of apps, but most software developers are too stupid/lazy/ignorant/uninformed/apathetic to bother to learn how. And the irony is that these days it is easier than ever to be cross-platform. For 3D, the OpenGL API has never enjoyed such broad support, from Macs to PCs to Linux. And cross-platform libs like SDL can help you forget about most of the rest of the crap too.

For "normal" applications, I recently tried out wxWindows, and I really enjoy using it. Even if you only care about the Win32 platform, I find that using wxWindows anyway is STILL much faster (development time) than using native Win32 or MFC, because the the latter two really suck as APIs. wxWindows doesn't automatically make your app cross-platform, but it can easily take you 90% of the way, especially since they have abstractions for tonnes of non-UI things as well, like files, sockets, threads, timers, and even have other cool lib functions like regular expression parsers.

With Mac and Linux both now being UNIX relatives, many other barriers to being cross-platform are disappearing too.

Re:There not missing much

[foniksonik]

Preach it brother... if your PC is the BEST way for you to watch a movie, well, more power to you. Pay the same price as a DVD rental and get a crappy picture/ sound track and then slap yourself when you realize that you're also paying for the bandwidth!

When they can broadcast HiDef video on demand to my broadband enabled HiDef Cinema screen, then I'll pay. Til then I'd rather BUY the DVD for 9.99 two weeks after it hits rental. Or maybe even see it in a THEATRE where it supposed to be viewed!

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Apple is right

[whereiswaldo]

Apple's doing the right thing. If everyone jumps on the wrong technology for protecting movies, it will become entrenched no matter how bad it is. That will inhibit better technologies from taking hold. It's a classic scenario in the computer world.
On the other hand, Apple is taking a chance by not getting involved now, but I think their customers will respect them for it and appreciate it since Apple's image, at least, is more about freedom than lockin.

Isn't this the right approach?

[Stu Charlton]

Apple has been noted for trying to take the high ground with the DRM issue. They're not forcing anything down consumer's throats, and make an effort to actually (*gasp*) trust their customers.

I'll admit, the only time I've used DRM to get a 7-day access to a movie on adultdvdempire.com that I was to lazy to wait for on DVD. (hey, at least I'm honest).

Was it worth it? Probably not. I bought it with my Mac, but could not view it with my Mac. I had to use my PC laptop, and it was a tremendous pain to install the Windows Media DRM software on Windows 2000. And I felt dirtier installing the software than actually watching the movie.

With all this hassle, and such limited use of the content, how successful can this model be? Sticking within the same industry, netvideogirls.com manages to have tremendous amounts of content for a reasonable subscription fee, and you always have access to what you downloaded!

When it comes to information, it's an experience good. And the more rights a person has to experience it, the more valuable it is to that person. DRM really seems to miss that. They've also seemed to miss that the rental market (i.e. Blockbuster movies) is REALLY hurting -- people are BUYING movies more than they're renting, for some reason.

On another note, the tone of this article concerns me. It's as if the author was trying to find any bit of mud to throw at Apple in hopes it would stick. Does this make good journalism?

Re:A little OT

[toupsie]

You use whatever behooves you today, but you're simply a shithead if you would dog on those people who are working hard right now to preserve a choice for you in the future.

Wow! You horse really is high. A Word Processor with DRM? What planet are you on? Is MS word going to prevent me from using certain phrases?

C|net: Online Casting Call Snubs Canada

[ablair]

By Staff Writer ablair
November 18, 2002, 10:30 PM EST

Ottawa - Recently, an online movie download service backed by five major studios opened for business, marking one of the industry's biggest moves to date into Internet distribution. Movielink is a the joint project by MGM Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. Studios

Canadian users will have to wait for a sequel to the initial Movielink service, however, since the service only works on computers with US IP addresses.

Last week's slight from Hollywood is an embarrassing rebuff for Canada, which has positioned itself as one of the leading countries for broadband adoption per capita. It also has a large contingent of early adopters, who likely would be interested in trying out technologies such as video-on-demand.

This is just the latest example of the challenges facing Canada. For years, many developers have ignored Canadian users entirely or forced them to wait months for region-specific versions of products, citing its relatively small market share. Canadians account for less than 5 percent of total desktop computing sales, according to industry research.

Movielink isn't the only online video service to dis the Mac. CinemaNow, an Internet movie site backed by studio Lion's Gate Entertainment, offers its wares to Windows customers only. In addition, Yahoo's Launch music video service also does not support the Mac, according to a recent test of the site by CNET News.com.

Canada clearly covets the market that the download service is meant to attract, having recently launched CA*net 4.

But if Canada has sometimes broken new ground, it has also frequently been left on the sidelines in the fast-evolving field of entertainment convergence.

In related news, Movieline.com reportedly does not allow connections from anywhere other than within the US, effectively rebuffing most of the world's online users.

Re:A little OT

[Galvatron]

I made no value judgements. All I said was, different features are important to different people. The good features of Mac are important to you, and the bad features are not. For me, it's the reverse. It's a simple difference of opinion, I can't understand why you're so insecure in your choice of operating system that you have to try to convince everyone that yours is the best. It's not the best, it's the best for YOU.

MICROSOFT ALREADY DOES THIS!

[cybercomm]

I have a couple of buddies in Eastern Europe (met them on irc, icq...) and they said that as soon as the government changed (Milosevic went to hague) M$ moved in almost immediatley! They even had the Synnergy conference the very next year! Anyway back to the point: They offered the amnesty period; and they also had Office XP and Win XP sold at pretty DARN LOW prices! (Of course after the amnesty period M$ hooligans (literally) started comming into business offices, Ma & Pa PC stores...to check weather they are complying with their rules. And worst of all (correct me if i'm wrong) the government gave them the full go-ahead. So tell me how can a country with one of the lowest GDP's in whole Europe affrod windows, let alone give M$ the carte blanche to do whatever it pleases...am i missing something? I wonder why they didnt go with linux?

Wrong...

[RedBear]

I can't believe this was marked "5, Insightful".

This is actually a good thing. Let's say you are trying to protect your house. Do you want the law to state that you must have an impenetrable fortress and if someone breaks in, tough luck?? Not having the strongest protection scheme should make a break-in (or cracking) any less illegal or wrong. If you think it should, next time someone breaks in to you house you should be saying "Well, I had it coming; I should have barred my windows and doors."

In order for this to be a proper analogy, it should go like this, "Well, I had it coming; I shouldn't have left all the doors and windows and the gate OPEN, and the door to the safe held shut with a 3-inch piece of masking tape." Depending on how stupid the DRM technology is, it could actually go more like this, "Well, I had it coming, I shouldn't have hung paper bags full of money on the outside of my fence, with a note saying, 'Opening these paper bags full of money is a violation of the DMCA.'"

The law doesn't expect you to have an impenetrable fortress for a house in order to receive legal protection, but it also doesn't have much respect for the opposite end of the spectrum. That's why we have legal ideas like criminal negligance and why people are expected to take "reasonable measures" to protect their property.

Now, when someone sells you something, like a DVD, it becomes your property. Except the DRM supporters want to be able to still treat it like *their* property, after you buy it, and be able to revoke ownership if the product isn't used in a way that they like. They also want to be able to do a strip-and-cavity search on every customer that enters their store to purchase their products. I imagine a grocery store that did that wouldn't last too long.

Re:If your too lazy to drive to the video store ..

[BiOFH]

No, I'll just pick up a VHS while I'm out getting needles for my record player.

You got any printer ribbons, by chance, for my dot matrix printer? I had some in the box where I keep my 5.25" disks but I can't find them now. I was watching Miami Vice and...........

PS - And it's "you're" you lazy bastard.

Re:Um... no.

[BiOFH]

I see why you posted as an AC... cuz yer an idiot.
At least you were smart enough not to attach your name to this badge of stupidity.

Re:Apple ALREADY uses DRM?

[BiOFH]

Apple is very willing to embrace DRM. They just won't embrace DRM that they see as "interfering with the experience of consumers". In their view Audible doesn't do so.

No one, to my knowledge, ever said Apple was fighting against DRM, and if they did they are wrong. They're fighting against crappy implementations that benefit the owners at the detriment of the user.

Wrong analogy

[Captain_Chaos]

This is actually a good thing. Let's say you are trying to protect your house. Do you want the law to state that you must have an impenetrable fortress and if someone breaks in, tough luck?? Not having the strongest protection scheme should make a break-in (or cracking) any less illegal or wrong. If you think it should, next time someone breaks in to you house you should be saying "Well, I had it coming; I should have barred my windows and doors."

That's the wrong analogy. Illegally copying copyrighted materials is already against the law, just like illegally entering a house is. The DMCA would be comparable to a law that says "you cannot make, own or use (even for legal purposes) any object that could be used to break into a house." That would be plainly ridiculous and unacceptable, and it goes to show how low the political and judicial systems of the US have sunk for actually allowing such a ridiculous law to be purchased...

The Why

[theolein]

Apple isn't really that saintly as some Mac Fans make it out to be; they'll also gladly get their legal dept. out if they feel they need to. The reason behind Apple's stance is one of economics. Apple is a major creator of digital content creation software and hardware (your Mac plus FCP and Logic Audio). Apple needs an image of freedom to create (the DRM issue as well as APSL) in order to make it stand out from the rest of the market.

However, I think this movielink thing is not destined for happy times. They only service that really makes money online is porno (I used to work in that branch, content editor and website creator) and the larger sites have the whole thing down pat already and have been international for years already. I cannot imagine normal users enjoying the tiny on screen movies and long waits for regular Hollywood content (where the porno goes on behind the scenes instead of on camera)

Gun control, since you brought it up :-)

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

You make a very convincing argument, as many pro-gun-control people do. Unfortunately, most of it is totally unsupported by the facts available, which is invariably where such arguments break down.

Muggers do not generally shoot first. The cycle of hate you describe, where surviving muggers learn their lesson and get more vicious next time, doesn't generally happen. Disarming everyone might be a great idea, except that it's totally impractical (said the poster from the UK, where only criminals have guns and gun crime is up 50+% since they banned the few handguns that were allowed before).

I have reservations about a massively pro-gun attitude, such as many US citizens appear to have, but I don't think mass disarming is even remotely plausible from your current starting point. That being the case, I'm more in favour of letting everyone have basic firearms than just the bad guys.

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Re:Actually, that's great

[theonetruekeebler]

The question is, how much of this crap will people put up with before they stop supporting these Draconian conglomerates? I haven't bought a new CD in at least two years because of this crap.

I'm guessing that from their perspective, you haven't bought a new CD in at least two years because it's still possible for you to "steal" music. Once that is impossible, you'll start buying again, on the terms they paid to have legislated.

Re:Do Americans Want Freedom or Bread and Circuses

[FreeUser]

I certainly support freedom. Of course, that freedom includes the freedom of people to add DRM to the computer systems they sell, and the freedom of people to choose whether to buy or not buy it.

Microsoft and the copyright cartels have monopolies that prevent the people from having such a choice. Microsoft's monopoly may be ill-gotten, and perhaps a more lawful Justice Department, free from the stain of presidential bribes, might have brought it into check, but the copyright cartels are granted monopolies by government fiat, and sustained by a regime of copyright law designed expressly for that purpose.

The Founding Fathers didn't give a rat's ass about whether you can get a weekly free beer at a bar. Their freedom of speech was to ensure that political speech wouldn't be silenced.

The constitution does not limit freedom of speech to political speech. It is clearly written and intended to protect all speech. As for the founding father's "giving a rats ass" I suggest you take a remidial course in basic US history.

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
--Thomas Jefferson 1812

You demonstrate the achilles heel of the Libertarian philosophy, namely their inability to differentiate between individual freedom, which the constitution was designed and intended to protect, and corporate freedom to run roughshod over those same individuals, which the founding fathers were nearly unanimous in opposing and even fearing. That they could never have forseen the corporate fascism to which our once great democracy has degenerated, and the willful attempt of Microsoft and Hollywood (through Palladium and DRM, as well as other measures) to usurp governance responsibilities (such as policing and enforcing the law) from its rightful authorities, namely a democractically elected government of, by, and for the people, is hardly their fault, but implying that the would have endorsed such a thing is an insult both to them and to the intellegence of anyone reading your post.

Netflix spams. Avoid them

[wowbagger]

Netflix are spammers. They will sell your information, and they buy unconfirmed lists and spam them.

Google evidence

I won't do business with them, and I would counsel anybody else to avoid doing business with them.

I *LIVE* in a podunk town (200 residents). I can still get videos from the local gas station/bait shop/quickeemart on the corner. There are alternatives.

Obviously, if you wish to do business with a spammer, that's your call. But I do want folks to know that Netflix are spammers.

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Re:Um... no.

[BiOFH]

DRM is not MS-Word, you dorks. It's not some nebulous app someone is busting their engineers to support.

Apple's market share has nothing to do with this at all. THAT's what makes it idiotic to go on about. DRM is arm twisting, not software.

So, let me re-cap: DRM is not software and Apple market share and supportability therefore have nothing to do with it. You don't get that. The other guy didn't either.

PS - They chose the word "coward" for very good reasons. You seem to epitomise those reasons.

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